


bM:-^,*l'-> ■ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




D0D17DDETt.A 





Class J2^a^A4 

Book 

GopightN" 



CCE^IGMT OEPOBUi 



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ae^ 



T^ GREAT CRYPTOGRAM: 

m FRANQi DACON'i CIPHER inTh? 
JO-CALLED JHAKESPEARE PLfflfX^Ml 




B/IGNATIUS DONNELIY, Author 
of 'Atl2vntiy:The AntediluvidJi VorldrdpJ 
"Ksi^ndJtifc'ni? A$e of Fire iv^ Grayel'.' 




%"-<! now Iwill vncl2vspe s^iecret booke 
A^^toyourquicke conceyuin^ Difcontentf 
lie reside you Midtendeepeapd d3Jigerouj, 
Ar full of perill ar-^ js^duenturou/ Jpirit, 
Aj to o'erwAlke a^Current ,roaj-in^ loud, 
On the vnftedffiJt footind of zs^ipeaj-e" 

IstHenrjrJV, ActI,Jc3. 




'^^h; 



MAY 5 1888 

9r ., Aju't^S,.- 



•Chicago,- 
•Dew yorfe aai jfondon- 

lR5.iPeale&(rompang 
1888. 



,<ct 



COPYRIGHT, 1887, 

By IGNATIUS DONNELLY. 
[all rights reserved.] 



/'■ 



/ 



.J 



I 



To f^Y Deafv 
gViFEL 

Dedicated. 





INTRODUCTION. 



^T^HE question may be asked by some, Why divide your 
^ book into two parts, an argument and a demonstration ? 
If the Cipher is conclusive, why is any discussion of probabili- 
ties necessary ? 

In answer to this I would state that, for a long time before 
I conceived the idea of the possibility of there being a Cipher 
in the Shakespeare Plays, I had been at work collecting proofs, 
from many sources, to establish the fact that Francis Bacon 
was the real author of those great works. Much of the material 
so amassed is new and curious, and well worthy of preserva- 
tion. While the Cipher will be able to stand alone, these 
facts will throw many valuable side-lights upon the story told 
therein. 

Moreover, that part of the book called " Parallelisms " will, 
I hope, be interesting to scholars, even after Bacon's authorship 
of the Plays is universally acknowledged, as showing how the 
same great mind unconsciously cast itself forth in parallel lines, 
in prose and poetry, in the two greatest sets of writings in the 
world. 

And I trust the essays on the geography, the politics, the 
religion and the purposes of the Plays will possess an interest 
apart from the question of authorship. 

I have tried to establish every statement I have made by 
abundant testimony, and to give due credit to each author 
from whom I have borrowed. 

For the shortcomings of the work I shall have to ask the 
indulgence of the reader. It was written in the midst of many 
interruptions and distractions; and it lacks that perfection 
which ampler leisure might possibly have given it. 

As to the actuality of the Cipher there can be but one con- 
clusion. A long, continuous narrative, running through many 
pages, detailing historical events in a perfectly symmetrical, 



V 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

rhetorical, grammatical manner, and always growing out of the 
same numbers, employed in the same way, and counting from the 
same, or sitnilar, starting-points, cannot be otherwise than a pre- 
arranged ajithmetical cipher. 

Let those who would deny this proposition produce a single 
page of a connected story, eliminated, by an arithmetical rule, 
from any other work ; in fact, let them find five words that 
will cohere, by accident, in due order, in any publication, where 
they were not first placed with intent and aforethought. I 
have never yet been able to find even three such. Regularity 
does not grow out of chaos. There can be no intellectual 
order without preexisting intellectual purpose. The fruits of 
mind can only be found where mind is or has been. 

It may be thought, by some, that I speak with too much 
severity of Shakspere and his family ; but it must be remem- 
bered that I am battling against the great high walls of public 
prejudice and intrenched error. "Fate," it is said, "obeys the 
downright striker." I trust my earnestness will not be mistaken 
for maliciousness. 

In the concluding chapters I have tried to do justice to the 
memory of Francis Bacon, and to the great minds that first an- 
nounced to the world his claim to the authorship of the Plays. 
I feel that it is a noble privilege to thus assist in lifting the 
burden of injustice from the shoulders of long-suffering merit. 

The key here turned, for the first time, in the secret wards 
of the Cipher, will yet unlock a vast history, nearly as great in 
bulk as the Plays themselves, and tell a mighty story of one of 
the greatest and most momentous eras of human history, illu- 
minated by the most gifted human being that ever dwelt upon 
the earth, 

I conclude by invoking, in behalf of my book, the kindly 
judgment and good-wili of all men. I. D. 



THE TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



BOOK L— THE ARGUMENT. 

PART I. 

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

Chapter I. — The Learning of the Plays, - - - - - i3 

II. — Shakspere's /Education, . - - - . 27 

III. — Shakspere's Real Character, - - - .44 

IV. — The Lost Manuscripts and Library, - . . 73 

V. — The Author of the Plays a Lawyer, - - - ic? 

PART II. 

FRANCIS BACON THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE PLA YS. 

Chapter I. — Francis Bacon a Poet, - - - - - 121 

IL — The Author of THE Plays A Philosopher, - - 149 

111. — The Geography of THE Plays, . . . . :6i 

IV. — The Politics of THE Plays, ... - 173 

V. — The Religion of the Plays, ----- 196 

^ VI. — The Purposes of the Plays, . . - - 212 

VII. — The Reasons for Concealment, - - - - -4^ 

VIII. — Corroborating Circumstances, - - - - 259 

PART III. 

PARALLELISMS. 

Chapter I. — Identical Expressions, ----- 29 

II. — Identical Metaphors, ----- 331, 

III. — Identical Opinions, ------ 370 

IV. — Identical Quotations, . - . - - 397 
V. — Identical Studies, - - - - - .411 

VI. — Identical Errors, ------ 437 

VII. — Identical Use of Unusual Words, . - - - 444 

VIII. — Identities of Character, . - . . 46- 

IX. — Identities of Style, - , - - - - - 4Si 

vii 



t£i 



viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

BOOK II.— THE DEMONSTRATION. 

PART I. 



THE CIPHER IN THE PLA YS. 

Chapter I. — How I Came to Look for a Cipher, 

II. — How I Became Certain There Was a Cipher, 
III. — A Vain Search in the Common Editions, 
IV. — The Great Folio of 1623, 
V. — Lost in the Wilderness. 
VI. — The Cipher Found, .... 



505 
516 

545 
548 

565 

575 



PART II. 

THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 

Chapter I. — The Treasonable Play of Richard II., - - 619 

II. — The Treasonable History of Henry IV., Written by Dr. 

Hayward, ....... 630 

III. — The Cipher Explained, - - - - 639 

IV. — Bacon Hears the Bad News, .... 670 

V. — Cecil Tells the Story of Marlowe, - - - . 688 

VI. — The Story of Shakspere's Youth, - - - 694 

VII. — The Purposes OF THE Plays, . . . . . 702 

VIII. — The Queen Beats Hayward, ... - 709 

IX. — Cecil Says Shakspere Did Not Write THE Plays, - - 718 

X. — Shakspere Incapable of Writing the Plays, - - 729 

XI. — Shakspere Wounded, .-.-.. 732 

XII. — Shakspere Carried to Prison, ..... 740 

XIII. — The Youthful Shakspere Described, • - - 756 

XIV. — The Bishop of Worcester and His Advice, • - 762 

XV. — Shakspere's Aristocratic Pretensions, - - - 770 

XVI. — Shakspere's Sickness, ..... 784 

XVII. — Shakspere the Model from which Bacon Drew the 

Characters of Falstaff and Sir Tobie, - - - 809 

XVIII. — Sweet Ann Hathaway, - - - - - 826 

XIX. — Bacon Overwhelmed, ---..- 844 

XX. — The Queen's Orders to Find Shakspere, • - 854 

XXI. — Fragments, ..--.-. 870 

XXII.— A Word Personal, ...... 889 

BOOK III.— CONCLUSIONS. 



Chapter I. — Delia Bacon, 

II. — William Henry Smith, 
III. — The Baconians, - 
W . — Other Masks of Bacon, 
V. — Francis Bacon, 



899 
916 
923 
939 
975 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Mrs. Constance M. Pott. 



Francis Bacon — The True Shakespeare. After the portrait by Van Somer. 

Frontispiece. ■ 
WiLLi.AM Shakspere. Fac-sitnilf of the celebrated Droeshout portrait in the 

1623 Folio, ......... (y^ 

Ben Jonson. After the portrait by Oliver, .... g^ 

Gorhambury. Bacon's residence, ------ 160 

Sir Robert Cecil. ---.-_.. 1^3 

Fac-simile of a Page from the Author's Copy of the Great Folio, - 566 
Letter of Lord Chancellor Verulam (Francis Bacon) to the University 

of Cambridge. Fac. simile, ------- 6S0 

Queen Elizabeth. After the portrait in the collection of the Marquis of 

Salisbury^ ---.-.., yi2 
Robert Devereu.x, Earl of Essex. After the portrait in the collection of 

the Earl of Verulam, --•-.-.. 632 

William Henry Smith, - - . - - - - - g2o 

William D. O'Connor, .---.--. goS 

Nathaniel Holmes, .-..-. g35 



944' 



Dr. William Thomson, - - - - . • . . 950 1' 

Prof. Thomas Davidson, • - - - _ . g5S •■- 



IX 





500K: I. 



THE ARGUMENT 



"Hsy, prey you come; 
Or if thou wilt hold further d^rgument. 
Do it in note/." 

Much Ado a6ou/AbfA/n0ir,3» 



PART I. 

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT 
WRITE THE PLAYS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE LEARNING REVEALED IN THE SHAKESPEARE 

WRITINGS. 

" From his cradle 
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one." 

Henry I 'III. , iv., 2. 

IT was formerly the universal belief, entertained even among the 
critical, that the writings which go by the name of William 
Shakespeare were the work of an untaught, unlearned man. 

Addison compared Shakspere' to the agate in the ring of 
Pyrrhus, which had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses 
pictured in the veins of the stone by the hand of Nature, without 
any assistance from Art. 

Voltaire regarded him as a " drunken savage." 
Pope speaks of him as " a man of no education." 
Richard Grant White says Shakspere was regarded, even 
down to the tim^ of Pope, as "this bewitching but untutored and 
half-savage child of nature." 

He was looked upon as a rustic-bred bard who sang as the 
birds sing — a greater Burns, who, as Milton says, "warbled his 
native wood-notes wild." 

This view was in accordance with the declaration of Ben Jon- 
son that he possessed " small Latin and less Greek," and the state- 

1 Wherever reference is had in these pages to the man of Stratford the name will be spelled, 
as he spelled it in his will, Shakspere. Wherever the reference is to the Plays, or to the real author 
of the Plays, the name will be spelled Shakespea-/e,ior that was the name on' the title-pages of 
quartos and folios. 

13 



14 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

ment of old Fuller, in his Worthies, in 1622, that "his learning was 

very little." 

Fuller says: 

Plautus was never any scholar, as doubtless our Shakespeare, if alive, would 
confess himself. 

Leonard Digges says: 

The patterne of all wit, 
Art without Art unparaleld as yet. 
Next Nature onely helpt him, for locke thorow 
This whole booke, thou shalt find he doth not borrow 
One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate. 
Nor once from vulgar languages translate. 

Rev. John Ward, Vicar of Stratford, writing forty-seven years 
after Shakspere's death, and speaking the traditions of Stratford, 
says: 

I have heard that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit, without any art at all. 

Seventy odd years after Shakspere's death, Bentham, in his 

Stat the English Schoo/s and Churches, says: 

illiam Shakespeare was born at Stratford, in Warwickshire; his learning 
w /ery little, and therefore it is more a matter for wonder that he should be a 
' y excellent poet.' 

But in the last fifty years this view is completely changed. 
The critical world is now substantially agreed that the man who 
wrote the plays was one of the most learned men of the world, not 
only in that learning which comes from observation and reflection, 
but in book-lore, ancient and modern, and in the knowledge of 
many languages. 

I. His Classical Learning. 

Grant White admits: 

He had as much learning as he had occasion to use, and even more.'' 

It was at one time believed that the writer of the plays was 
unable to read any of the Latin or Greek authors in the original 
tongues, and that he depended altogether upon translations; but 
such, it is now proved, was not the case. 

The Coinedy of Errors, which is little more than a repro- 
duction of the Menoechtni of Plautus, first appeared at certain 

' Chap. 19. ''■ White, Life and Genius o/ Shakespeare , p. 256. 



THE LEARNING REVEALED IN THE PLAYS. 15 

Christmas revels given by Bacon and his fellow lawyers, at 
Gray's Inn, in 1594; while, says Halliwell, "the AlenoecJwu oi 
Plautus was not translated into English, or rather no English 
translation of it was printed, before 1595." 

/ " The greater part pf the story of Timon was taken from the 
untranslated Greek of Lucian.'" 
/ " Shakespeare's plays," says White,^ " show forty per cent of 
Romance or Latin words, which is probably a larger proportion 
than is now used by our best writers; certainly larger than is 
heard from those who speak their mother tongue with spon- 
taneous, idiomatic correctness." 

We find in Twelfth Night these lines: 

Like the Egyptian thief, at point of death, 
Kill what I love.' 

This is an allusion to a story from Heliodorus' .-Ethiopics. I do 
not know of any English translation of it in the time of Shakspere. 

Holmes says: 

The writer was a classical scholar. Rowe found traces in him of the Electra 
of Sophocles; Colman, of Ovid; Pope, of Dares Phrygius, and other Greek 
authors; Farmer, of Horace and Virgil; Malone, of Lucretius, Statins, Catullus, 
Seneca, Sophocles, and Euripides; Stevens, of Plautus; Knight, of the Antig- 
one of Sophocles; and White, of the Alcesfis of Euripides.'* 

White says: 

His very frequent use of Latin derivatives in their radical sense shows a 
somewhat thoughtful and observant study of that language." 

White further says: 

Where, even in Plutarch's pages, are the aristocratic republican tone and the 
tough muscularity of mind, which characterized the Romans, so embodied as in 
Shakespeare's Roman plays? Where, even in Homer's song, the subtle wisdom of 
the crafty Ulysses, the sullen selfishness and conscious martial might of broad 
Achilles; the blundering courage of thick-headed Ajax ; or the mingled gallantry 
and foppery of Paris, so vividly portrayed as in Troiliis and Cressida ? * 

Knight says: 

The marvelous accuracy, the real, substantial learning, of the three Roman 
plays of Shakespeare present the most complete evidence to our minds that they 
were the result of a profound study of the whole range of Roman history, in- 
cluding the nicer details of Roman manners, not in those days to be acquired in a 
compendious form, but to be brought out by diligent reading alone.' 

1 Holmes, Authorship vf Shakespeare, p. 57. * Life and Genius c/ Shakespeare , p. 31. 

" Life and Ccniiis cf Shakespeare, p. 216. * r.:id., p. 257. 

' Act V, scene i. ' Knight's Shak. Biography, p. 528. 
* Authorship oj" Shakespeare , p. 57. 



1 6 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

And again: 

In his Roman plays he appears co-existent with his wonderful characters, and 
to have 7-ead all the obscure pages of Roman history with a clearer eye than philosopher 
or historian. When he employs Latinisms in the construction of his sentences, 
and ej'en in the creation of ne'iv words, he does so with singular facility and unerring 
correctness.' 

Appleton Morgan says: 

In Antony and Cleopatra, Charmian suggests a game of billiards. But this 
is not, as is supposed, an anachronism, for the human encyclopedia who wrote that 
sentence appears to have known — what very few people know nowadays — that 
the game of billiards is older than Cleopatra.'^ 

Whately^ describes Shakespeare as possessed of "an amazing 
genius which could pervade all nature at a glance, and to whom 
nothing within the limits of the universe appears to be unknown." 

A recent writer says, speaking of the resemblance between the 

Eu?nemdes oi .^schylusand th.Q Hamlet oi Shakespeare: 

The plot is so similar that we should certainly have credited the English poet 
with copying it, if he could have read Greek. . . . The common elements are 
indeed remarkable. Orestes and Hamlet have both to avenge a beloved father 
who has fallen a victim to the guilty passion of an unfaithful'wife; in each case the 
adulterer has ascended the throne; and a claim of higher than mere mortal 
authority demands his punishment; for the permitted return of Hamlet's father 
from the world beyond the grave may be set beside the command of Apollo to 
Orestes to become the executive of the wrath of Heaven.^ 

Knight* sees evidence that Shakespeare was a close student of 
the works of Plato. 

Alexander Schmidt, in his lexicon, under the word Adonis, quotes 

the following lines from Shakespeare: 

Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens. 

That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next.® 

Upon which Schmidt comments: 

Perhaps confounded with the garden of King Alcinous in the Odyssey.'' 

Richard Grant White says: 

No mention of any such garden in the classic writings of Greece and Rome is 
known to scholars. 

But the writer of the plays, who, we are told, was no scholar, 

had penetrated more deeply into the lassie writings than his learned 

critics; and a recent commentator, James D. Butler, has found out 

the source of this allusion. He says: 

' Knight's Shak. Biography, p. 528. ^ Knight's Shak., note 6, act v, Merchant 0/ I'oiice. 

* Some Shak. Commentators, p. 35. ^ 1st Henry /'/., i, 6. 

3 Shak. Myth., p. 82. ' vii, 11 7-126. 
^ Julia Wedgewood. 



THE LEARNING REVEALED IN THE PLAYS. 



17 



This couplet must have been suggested by Plato. {PJiacdrus, p. 276.) The 
translation is Jowett's — that I may not be suspected of warping the original to fit 
my theory: 

Would a husbandman, said Socrates, who is a man of sense, take the seeds, 
which he values and which he wishes to be fruitful, and in sober earnest plant 
them during the heat of summer, in some garden of Adonis, that he may rejoice 
when he sees them in eight days appearing in beauty? Would he not do that, if 
at all, to please the spectators at a festival ? Rut the seeds about which he is in 
earnest he sows in fitting soil, and practices husbandry, and is satisfied if in eight 
months they arrive at perfection.' 

Here we clearly have the original of the disputed passage: 

Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens, 

That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next. 

Judge Holmes^ finds the original of the expression, '' the mind's 
eye," in Plato, who uses precisely the same phrase. He also thinks 
the passage of Plato, — 

While begetting and rearing children, and handing in succession from some to 
others life like a torch, and even paying, according to law, worship to the gods, — 

gave the hint for the following lines in Measure for Measure: 

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
Not light them for ourselves. 

He also finds in Plato the original of Lear's phrase, " this same 

^earned Theban." 

Knight thinks the expression, — 

Were she as rough 
As the swelling Adriatic seas,^ — 

was without doubt taken from Horace,^ " <?/ whose odes there tvas no 
translation in the sixteenth century.'' 
The grand lines in Macbeth., — 

• And all our yesterdays have lighted ioo\?, 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! — 

are traced to Catullus. I give the translation of another? 

Soles occidere et redire possunt. 
Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, 
Nox est perpetuo una dot-mi enda. 

(The lights of heaven go out and return. 
When once our brief candle goes out. 
One night is to be perpetually slept.) 

That beautiful thought in Hamlet, — 

And ffom her unpolluted fiesh 
May violets spring, * — 

' Shakespeariana, May, 1886, p. 230. 3 Taming 0/ the Shrew, i, 2. = Act V, scene i. 

^ A uthorship of Shakespeare, p. 396. ■» Ode xix, book iii. 



1 8 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 
seems to have had its original in the lines of Persius: 

Nunc levior cippus non iiiipriiiiit ossa, 
Laitdat posteriias, mine non e nianibus illis. 
Nunc non h tiiinulo fortunataque favilla 
Nascu7itJir vioLc ? ' — 

which has been translated: 

Will a less tomb, composed of smaller stones, 
Press with less weight upon the under bones? 
Posterity may praise them, why, what though? 
Can yet their manes such a gift bestow 
As to make violets from their ashes grow? 

W. O. Follett (Sandusky, Ohio), in his •pamphlet, Addendum 
to Who Wrote Shakespeare, quotes^ a remark of the brothers 
Langhorne in the preface to their translation of the Lives of Plu- 
tarch, to this effect: 

It is said by those tvho are not willing to allow Shakspere much learning, that 
he availed himself of the last mentioned translation [of Plutarch, by Thomas 
North]. But they seem to forget that, in order to support their arguments of this 
kind, it is necessary for them to prove that Plato, too, was translated into English 
at the same time; for the celebrated soliloquy, "To be or not to be," is taken 
almost verbatim from that philosopher; yet we have never found that Plato was 
translated in those times. 

Mrs. Pott has shown in her great work' that very man^^ of the 
Latin quotations found in Francis Bacon's sheets of notes and 
memoranda, preserved in the British Museum, and called his Pro- 
mits of FormulaiHes and Elegancies, are either transferred bodily to 
the plays or worked over in new forms. It follows, therefore, that 
the writer of the Plays must have read the authors from whom 
Bacon culled these sentences, or have had access to Bacon's manu- 
script notes, or that he was Bacon himself. 

In the Promiis notes we find the proverb, ^^Diluci/lo surgere salit- 
berrimumr 

Sir Toby Belch says to Sir Andrew Aguecheek: 

Approach, Sir Andrew; not to be a-bed after midnight is to be up betimes, 
and diluculo su7-gere, thou knowest.'* 

Again: 

Qui dissimulat liber non est. (He who dissembles is not free.)^ 

In Shakespeare we have: 

The dissembler is a slave. ^ 

» Sat. i. ' Protnus, pp. 31-38. ° Protnus notes, folio 83 C. 

* Page 7. * Twelfth Night, ii, 3. ' Pericles^ i, i. 



THE LEARNING REVEALED IN THE PLAYS. 19 

Again, in the P ramus notes, we have: 

Divitics impediinenta virtutis. (The baggage of virtue.) 

Bacon says: 

I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue. 

Shakespeare says: 

If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; ' 

For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, 
Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, 
. Till death unloads thee.^ 

Again: 

Mors et fugacern perseguitu?' virum. (Death pursues even the man that flies 
from him.) 

Shakespeare has: 

Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.* 

And again: 

Mors omnia solvit. (Death dissolves all things.) 

Shakespeare has: 

Let heaven dissolve my life.^ 
And again: 

Hoc solum si-io, quod ni liil scio. (This only I know, that I know nothing.) 
Shakespeare has: 

The wise man knows himself to be a fool.-* 
Again: 

Tela honoris tenerior. (The stuff of which honor is made is rather tender.) 

Shakespeare has: 

The tender honor of a maid.'' 
Again: 

Tranquillo qui libel gubernator. — Eras. Ad. 4496. (Any one can be a pilot in 
fine weather.) 

Shakespeare says: 

Nay, mother. 
Where is your ancient courage? You were used 
To say, extremity was the trier of spirits; 
That common chances common men could bear; 
That when the sea was calm all boats alike 
i":^ Showed mastership in floating.*' 

' Measure for Measure, iii, 1. 4 ^^ yg„ j^jf,^ /( y^ j 

» j>rf He>2ry 1 7., ii, 5. s ^//'^ Well that Ends Well, iii, 5. 

' Antony and Cleopatra, iii, 2. 6 Coriolanus, iv, i. 



20 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



Again: 

Ln aliquihiis vianctur qtiia non datur reg?rssus. (In some [places] one has 
to remain because there is no getting back.) ' 

And in Shakespeare we find: 

I am in blood 
Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more. 
Returning were as easy as go o'er.'- 

Again: 

Erigus adtirit. (Cold parches.) 

And Shakespeare says: 

Frost itself as actively doth burn.'^ 
Again: 

A7iosi\' teipsiii. (Know thyself.) 

Shakespeare has: 

Mistress, know yourself.^ 
He knows nothing who knows not himself.* 
That fool knows not himself.'' 

I could cite many other similar instances, but these will doubt- 
less be sufficient to satisfy the reader. 

IT. His Knowledge of the Modern Languages. 

It furthermore now appears that the writer of the plays was 
versed in the languages and literature of France, Italy, and even 
Spain; while he had some familiarity with the annals and tongues 
of Northern Europe. 

As to the French, whole pages of the plays are written in that 
language.' 

His knowledge of Italian is clearly proved. 

The story of Othello was taken from the Italian of Cinthio's // Capitano Moro, 
of which no translation is known to have existed; the tale of Cymbeline was drawn 
from an Italian novel of Boccaccio, not known to have been translated into English, 
and the like is true of other plays.* 

Richard Grant White" conclusively proves that the writer of 
t'//?)?//^ had read the Orlando Furioso in the original Italian; that the 
very words are borrowed as well as the thought; and that the 



J Promiis notes. No. 1361. 

^ Macbeth, \\\,i,. 

^ Harutc't, iii, 4. 

* As Vou Lilce It, iv, i. 

f-Alfs Well that Ends Well, ii, 4. 



' Troilus and Cressida, ii, i. 

Henry V. 
8 Holmes, AuthorshiJ> 0/ Shakespeare, p. 58. 
' Life and Genius 0/ Shakespeare, p. 33. 



THE LEARNING REVEALED IN THE PLAYS. 2 1 

author adhered to the expressions in the Italian where the only 
translation then in existence had departed from them. The 
same high authority also shows that in the famous passage, 
" Who steals my purse steals trash," etc., the writer of Othello 
borrowed from the Orlando Innavwrato of Berni, "of which poem to 
this day there is no English version." 

The plot of the comedy of Ttvelfth Night ; or, What You Will, is 
drawn from two Italian comedies, both having the sa^.e title, 
GVInganni (The Cheats), both published before the date of Shake- 
speare's play, and which Shakespeare must have read in the original 
Italian, as there were, I believe, no English translations of them. 

The Two Gentlemen of Ve?'0}ta is supposed to have been written 
several years before 1598, the year when Bartholomew Yonge's 
translation of the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor was published in 
England; and Halliwell believes that there are similarities between 
Shakespeare's play and Montemayor's romance "too minute to be 
accidental." If this is the case we must conclude that Shakespeare 
either read some translation of the romance in manuscript before 
1598, or else that he read it in the original. Says Halliwell: 

The absolute origin of the entire plot has possibly to be discovered in some 
Italian novel. The error in the first folio of Padua for Milan, in act ii, scene 5, has 
perhaps to be referred to some scene in the original novel. Tieck mentions an old 
German play founded on a tale similar to The Tivo Gentlemen of Verona; but it has 
not yet been made accessible to English students, and we have no means of 
ascertaining how far the resemblance extends. 

It further appears that Shakespeare found the original of The 
Merchant of Venice in an untranslated Italian novel. Mr. Collier says: 

In the novel // Pecorone of Giovanni Fiorentino, the lender of the money 
(under very similar circumstances, and the wants of the Christian borr. .ver arising 
out of nearly the same events) is a Jew; and there also we have the 

equal pound 
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken 
In what part of your body pleaseth me. 

The words in the Italian are '"chel Giudeo gli potesse levare una libra di cante 
d'addosso di qiialuvique liiogo e' volesse," which are so nearly like those of 
Shakespeare as to lead us to believe that he followed here some literal translation 
of the novel in // Peeorone. None such has, however, reached our time, and the 
version we have printed at the foot of the Italian was made and published 
in 1765.' 

Mrs. Pott, in her great work, calls attention to the following 

1 Introduction to the Adzienturcs of Gianctta, Shakespeare's Library, part i, vol. i, p. 315. 



22 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE FLAYS. 



Italian proverb, and the parallel passage in Lear. No one can doubt 
that the former suggested the latter: 

Non far cib che tti ptioi; 
Non spender cib che in hai; 
Non creder cib che tit odi ; 
Non dir cib che tii sai.'^ 

(Do less than thou canst; 
Spend less than thou hast; 
Believe less than thou hearest; 
Say less than thou knowest.) 

While in Shakespeare we have: 

Have nnore than thou showest, 
Speak more than thou knowest, 
Lend less than thou owest, 
Ride more than thou goest, 
Learn more than thou trowest.'^ 

And, again, the same author calls attention to the following 
Italian proverb and parallel passage: 

II savio fa della nccessita znrtii. (The wise man makes a virtue of necessity.)'* 

Shakespeare says: 

Are you content to make a virtue of necessity?'* 

The same author calls attention to numerous instances where 
the author of the plays borrowed from Spanish proverbs. I select 
one of the most striking: 

Desque naci llore ye cada dia nace porque. (When I was born I cried, and ev^ry 
day shows why.) 

Shakespeare has; 

When we are born we cry, that we are come 
To this great stage of fools. ^ 

In Loves Labor Lost^ we find the author quoting part of an 

Italian proverb: 

Vinegia, Vinegia, 

Chi non ti vede ei non ti pregia. 

The proverb is: 

Venetia, Venetia, chi non tivede, non (i pregia. 
Ma chi t'ha troppo vediito ti dispregia. 

The plot of ILainlet was taken from Saxo Grammaticus, the 
Danish historian, of whom, says Whately, writing in 1748, "no 

• Prointts, p. 524. ' Pro»!iis, p. 525. * Lear, iv, 6. 

^ Lear, i, 6. * Two Gcntlcinen 0/ I'erona, iv, i. 'Act iv, scene 2. 



THE LEARNING REVEALED IN THE PLAYS. 



23 



translation hath yet been made."' So that it would appear the 
author of Hamlet must have read the Danish chronicle in the orig- 
inal tongue. 

Dr. Herman Brunnhofer, Dr. Benno Tschischwitz (in his Shake- 
speare Forschungeii) and Rev. Bowechier Wrey Savile" all unite in 
believing that the writer of Hamlet was familiar with the works of 
Giordano Bruno, who visited England, 1583 to 1586; and that the 
words of Hamlet,' ''If the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being 
a god kissing carrion," etc., are taken from Bruno's Spaccio delta 
Bestia Trionfante. Furthermore, that the author of Hamlet was 
familiar with " the atomic theory " of the ancients. And the Rev. 
Bowechier Wrey Savile says: 

Inasmuch as neither Bruno's Spaccio, nor the fragments of Parmenides' poem, 
On Nature, which have come down to us, were known in an English dress at the 
beginning of the seventeenth century (Toland's translation of Bruno's Spaccio did 
not appear until 1713), it would seem to show that the author of Hamlet must have 
been acquainted with both Greek and Italian, as was the case with the learned 
Francis Bacon. 

ni. A Scholar Even in His Youth. 

The evidences of scholarship mark the earliest as well as the 
latest works of the great poet; in fact, they are more observable in 
the works of his youth than in those of middle life. Even the 
writers who have least doubt as to the Shaksperean authorship of 
the plays admit this fact. 

White says the early plays show "A mind fresh from academic 
studies."* 

Speaking of the early plays, Prof. Dowden finds among their 
characteristics: 

Frequency of classical allusions, frequency of puns and conceits, wit and image- 
ry drawn out in detail to the point of exhaustion. ... In Love' s Labor Lost the 
arrangement is too geometrical; the groupings are artificial, not organic or vital. 

Coleridge was of opinion that 

A young author's first work almost always bespeaks his recent pursuits. 

And, hence, he concludes that 

The habits of William Shakespeare had been scholastic and those of a student. 

The scholarship of the writer of the plays and his familiarity 

with the Latin language are also shown in the use of odd and 

' A « hiqtdry into the Learning of Shakespeare. ^ Act ii, scene i. 

"^ Shakcspeariana, Oct., 1884, p. 312. ■• White, Shakespeare's Genius, p. 257. 



24 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

extraordinary words, many of them coined by himself, and such 
as would not naturally occur to an untaught genius, familiar with 
no language but his own. I give a few specimens: 

Rubrous, Twelfth Night, i, 4. Evitate, Merry Wives of Windsor, v, 5. 

Pendulous, King Lear, iii, 4. Imbost, Antony and Cleopatra, iv, 3. 

Abortive, Richard III., i, 2. Disnatured, King Lear, i, 4. [ii, i. 

Cautelous, y«A«j- Cccsar, ii, i. Inaidable, AlVs Well That Ends Well, 

Cautel, Hamlet, i, 3. Unsuppressiye,y/////« Cicsar, ii, i. 

Deracinate, T7vilics and Cressida, \, 3; Oppugnancy, Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 

Henry V., v, 2. Enskied, Measure for Measure, \, 5. 

Surcease, Macbeth, i, 7. Legerity, Henry V., iv, i. 

Recordation, id Hen>y IV., ii, 3. Propinquity, King Lear, i, i. 

Enwheel, Othello, ii, l. Credent, Hamlet, i, 3. 

Armipotent, yiZ/'i- Well That Ends Well, Sluggardised, The Two Gentlemen of 

iv, 3. Verona, i, \. 



Knight says, speaking of the word expedient 



.\ 



Expedient. The word properly means, "that disengages itself from all entan- 
glements." To set at liberty the foot which was held fast is exped-ij-e. Shakspere 
always uses this word in strict accordance with its derivation, as, in truth, he does 
most words that may be called learned.'- 

Knight^ also notes the fact that he uses the word reduce in 
the Latin sense, "to bring back." 

IV. His Universal Learning. 

The range of his studies was not confined to antique tongues 
and foreign languages. He must have read all the books of travel 
which grew out of that age of sea-voyages and explorations. 

Dr. Brinton'' points out that the idea of Ariel having been 
pegged in the knotty entrails of an oak until freed by Prospero 
was borrowed from the mythology of the Yurucares, a South 
American tribe of Indians, in which the first men were confined in 
the heart of an enormous bole, until the god Tiri let them out by 
cleaving it in twain. He further claims that Caliban is undoubt- 
edly the word Carib, often spelt Caribani and Calibani in olden 
writers; and his "dam's god, Setehos" was the supreme deity of the 
Patagonians, when first visited by Magellan. 

In The Merchant of Venice we read: 

Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed. 
Unto the tranect, to the common ferry. ^ 

» King John, ii, i. 2 Knight's Shak., i History, p. 24. ' Richard III., v, 4. 

< Myths of the New World, p. 240, note. * Act iii, scene 5. 



\ 



THE LEARNING REVEALED IN THE FLAYS. 25 

Of this word Knight says: 

No other example is found of the use of this word in English, and yet there is 
little doubt that the word is correct. Tranare and trainare are interpreted by 
Florio not only as to dram, which is the common acceptation, but as to pass 07' swim 
ever. Thus the tnuit'ct was most probably the tow-boat of the ferry. • 

In King Joh/i we have: 

Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot; 
Some airy devil hovers in the sky, 
And pours down mischief.- 

Collier changed airy to fic?y, "which, we may be sure," he says, 
^'was the word of the poet." But Knight turns to Burton and 
shows that he described "aerial spirits or devils, who keep most 
quarter in the air, and cause many tempests, thunder and light- 
ning," etc. And he also referred to the fact that " Paul to the 
Ephesians called them forms of the aii." Knight adds: 

Shakspere knew this curious learning from the schoolmen, but the correctors 
knew nothing about it. 

We have another instance, in the following, where the great 

poet knew a good deal more than his commentators. 

In Romeo and Juliet he says: 

Are you at leisure, holy Father, now; 

Or shall I come to you at evening mass ? * 

Upon this Richard Grant White says: 

If he became a member of the Church of Rome it must have been after he 
wrote Romeo and Juliet, in which he speaks of " evening mass; " for the humblest 
member of that church knows that there is no mass at vespers.* 

But we have the authority of the learned Cardinal Bona that 
the name mass was given to the morning and evening prayers 
of the Christian soldiers. Salvazzio states that the name was 
given to the lectures or lessons in matins. In the " Rule of 
St. Aurelian " it is stated that at Christmas and on the Epiphany 
six masses are to be read at matins, from the prophet Isaiah, and six 
from the gospel; whilst on the festivals of martyrs the first mass is 
to be read from the acts of the martyrs. In his rule for nuns the 
same holy Bishop tells them that, as the nights are long, they may 
recite three masses at the lectern. As the female sex could not 
act as priests, it is plain that the word mass was formerly the 

> Knight's Shak. Com., p. 240. ^ Act iv, scene i. 

' Act iii, scene 2. ^ Li/e and Genius of Shak., p. 1S7. 



2 6 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PI AYS. 

synonym for prayers, and did not mean, as nowadays, exclusively 
the great sacrifice of the church; and therefore " evening mass " 
simply means the evening service. In fact, as Bishop Clifford 
shows, the word mass or, as it was written in Anglo-Saxon, 
inu'ssc, came to be regarded as the synonym for feast ; hence, 
Ca/idlemas, lai/iinas, Michaelmas, etc., are the feast of candles, the 
feast of loaves, the feast of St. Michael, etc. " Moreover, mass 
being the chief religious service of the Catholic Church, the word 
came to be used in the sense of church service in general. Evening- 
mass means evening service or vespers." 

What a curious reaching-out for facts, in a day barren of 
encyclopaedias, is shown in these lines: 

Adrian. Widow Dido, said you? You make me study of that: she was of 
Carthage, not of Tunis. 

Goiiza/o. This Tunis, sir, 'icas Carthage. 

Adrian. Carthage? 

Gonzalo, I assure you, Carthage.^ 

V. Our Conclusion. 

We commence our argument, therefore, with this proposition: 
The author of the plays, whoever he may have been, was unques- 
tionably a profound scholar and most laborious student. He had 
read in their own tongues all the great, and some of the obscure 
writers of antiquity; he was familiar with the languages of the 
principal nations of Europe; his mind had compassed all the learn- 
ing of his t-itne and of preceding ages; he had pored over the 
pages of'' French and Italian novelists; he had read the philosoph- 
ical utterances of the great thinkers of Greece and Rome; and he 
had closely considered the narrations of the explorers who were 
just laying bare the secrets of new islands and continents. It has 
been justly said that the plays could not have been written with- 
out a library, and cannot, to-day, be studied without one. To' 
their proper elucidation the learning of the whole world is neces- 
sary. Goethe says of the writer of the plays: "He drew a sponge 
over the table of human knowledge." 

We pass, then, to the qtiestion, Did William Shakspere possess 
such a vast mass of information? — could he have possessed it? 

' Tempest^ ii, i. 



CHAPTER II. 

- THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 

Toiichstonc. Art thou learned ? 

WilliaDi. No, sir. 

Touchstone. Then learn this of me : to have is to have. 

As You Like Jl, v, i. 

TT must not be forgotten that the world of three hundred years 
ago was a very different world from that of to-day. 
A young man, at the present time, can receive in the backwoods 
of the United States, or Canada, or in the towns of AustraHa, an 
education which Cambridge and Oxford could not have afforded 
to the noblemen of England in the sixteenth century. That tre- 
mendous educator, the daily press, had then no existence. Now 
it comes to almost every door, bringing not only the news of the 
whole world, but an abstract of the entire literary and scientific 
knowledge of the age. 

I. England in the Sixteenth Century. 

Three hundred years ago the English-speaking population of the 
world was confined almost altogether to the island of Great Britain, 
and the refinement and culture of the island scarcely extended 
beyond a few towns and the universities. London was the great 
center, not only of politics, but of literature and courtly manners. 
The agricultural population and the yeomanry of the smaller 
towns were steeped to the lips in ignorance, rude and barbarous 
in their manners, and brutal in their modes of life. 

They did not even speak the same language. Goadby tells us 
that, when the militia met from the different counties to organize 
resistance to the invasioji of the Spaniards, 

It was hard to catch the words of command, so pronounced were the different 
dialects.' 

Simpson says : 

If cattle-driving was to be interpreted as levying war, all England at harvest 
tide was in a state of warfare. The disputes about tithes and boundaries were 

' Goadby, England of Shak., p. 83. 

27 



28 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

then usually settled by bands of armed men, and the records of the Star-Chamber 
swarm with such cases. ^ 

The cots or dwellings of the humble classes in Shakspere's time 
were, as the haughty Spaniard wrote, in the reign of Elizabeth's 
sister, built "of sticks and dirt." 

"People," says Richard Grant White, "corresponding in posi- 
tion to those whose means and tastes would now insure them as 
much comfort in their homes as a king has in his palace, and even 
simple elegance beside, then lived in houses which in their best 
estate would seem at the present day rude, cheerless and confined, 
to any man not bred in poverty. ""■' 

II. Stratford in the Time of Shakspere. 

The lives of the people were coarse, barren and filthy. 

Thorold Rogers says: 

Iivthe absence of all winter rooj^s and herbs, beyond a few onions, a diet of 
salted provisions, extending over so long a period, would be sure to engender 
disease; . . . and, as a matter of fact, scurvy and leprosy, the invariable results of 
an unwholesome diet, 7i<cre eudcviic, the latter malignant and infectious in 
medieval England. The virulence of these diseases, due in the first instance to 
unwholesome food, was aggravated by the iuconceivably filthy habits of the people.^ 

Richard Grant White says: 

Stratford then contained about fifteen hundred inhabitants, who dwelt chiefly 
in thatched cottages, which straggled over the ground, too near together for rural 
beauty, too far apart to seem snug and neighborly; and scattered through the 
gardens and orchards around the best of these were neglected stables, cow-yards 
and sheep-cotes. Many of the meaner houses were without chijiineys or glazed 
7vindows. The streets were cumbered with logs and blocks, and foul with offal, 
mud, muck-heaps and reeking stable refuse, the accumulation of which the town 
ordinances and the infliction of fines could not prevent even before the doors of the 
better ^ort of people. The very first we hear of John Shakespeare himself, in 1552, 
is that he and a certain Humphrey Reynolds and Adrian Quiney " feeeriint 
stenjtii/Kiritt/ii," in the quarter called Henley Street, against the order of the court; 
for which dirty piece of business they were " /;/ luisericordia" as they well 
deserved. But the next year John Shakespeare and Adrian Quiney repeated the 
unsavory offense, and this time in company with the bailiff himself.'* 

Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

The sanitary condition of the thoroughfares of Stratford-on-Avoh was, to our 
present notions, simply terrible. Under-surface drainage of every kind was then 
an unknown art in the district. There was a far greater amount of moisture in 
the land than would now be thought possible, and streamlets of water-power suffi- 

1 Sckoot of Shak., vol. i, p. 60. ^ JTor/i and Wages^ Thorold Rogrers, p. 96. 

* Life and Genius of S/ia/c., p. 17. ^ Life and Ceniits 0/ Sliak.^ p. 21. 



/ 



t 



THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 29 

cient for the operation of corn-mills meandered through the town. This general 
humidity intensified the evils arising from the want of scavengers, or other effect- 
ive appliances for the preservation of cleanliness. House-slops were recklessly 
thrown into ill-kept channels that lined the sides of unmetaled roads; pigs and 
geese too often reveled in the puddles and ruts, while here and there were small 
middens, ever in the course of accumulation, the receptacles of offal and of every 
species of.nastiness. A regulation for the removal of these collections to certain 
specified localities, interspersed through the borough and known as common 
dung-hills, appears to have been the extent of the interference that the authorities 
ventured or cared to exercise in such matters. Sometimes when the nuisance was 
thought to be sufficiently flagrant, they made a raid on those inhabitants who had 
suffered their refuse to accumulate largely in the highways. On one of these 
occasions; in April, 1552, John Shakespeare was fined the sum of twelve pence for 
having amassed what was no doubt a conspicuous sterquinariutn before his house 
in Henley Street, and under these unsavory circumstances does the history of the 
poet's father commence in the records of England. It is sad to be compelled to 
admit that there was little excuse for his negligence, one of the public stores of filth 
being within a stone's throw of his residence. ' 

The people of Stratford were densely ignorant. At the time of 
Shakspere's birth, only six aldermen of the town, out of nineteen, 
could write their names; and of the thirteen who could not read or 
write, Shakspere's father, John Shakspere, was one. 

Knight says: 

We were reluctant to yield our assent to Malone's assertion that Shakspere's 
father had a mark to himself. The marks are not distinctly aflSxed to each name 
in this document. But subsequent discoveries establish the fact that he used two 
marks — one something like an open pair of compasses, the other the common cross. '•^ 

III. Shakspere's Family Totally Uneducated. 

Shakspere's whole family were illiterate. He was the first of 

his race we know of who was able to read and write. His father and 

mother, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and cousins — all 

signed their names, on the few occasions when they were obliged 

to sign them, with crosses. His daughter Judith could not read 

or write. The whole population around him were in the same 

condition. 

y The highest authority upon these questions says: 

/ Exclusive of Bibles, church services, psalters and educational manuals, there 

' were certainly not more than two or three dozen books, if so many, in the whole 
town. 

The copy of the black-letter English History, so often depicted as well thumbed 
by Shakespeare, in his father's parlor, never existed out of the imagination.* 

' Outlines Life of Shak., p. 18. ^ Knight's Shale. Biography., p. 17. 

5 Halliwell-Phillipps, Life o/S'talc, p. 42. 



30 IVILJJAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

Goadby says: 

The common people were densely ignorant. They had to pick up their 
mother tongue as best they could. The first English grartimar was not published 
until 1586. [This was after Shakspere had finished his education.] It is evident 
that much schooling was impossible, for the necessary books did not exist. The 

horn-book Jor teaching the alphabet luoithl almost exhaust the resources of anv coDrnion 
day schools that /night exist in the tozuns and villages. Little ii-' any English was 

TAUGHT EVEN IN THE LOWER CLASSES OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.' 

Prof. Thorold Rogers says: 

Sometimes perhaps, in the days after the Reformation, a more than ordinarily 
opulent ecclesiastic, having no family ties, would train up some :lever rustic child, 
teach him and help him on to the university. But, as a rule, since that event, 
there 'was no educated person in the parish beyond the parsoti, and he had the anxieties 
of a narrow fortune and a numerous family.- 

The Rev John Shaw, who was temporary chaplain in a village 
in Lancashire in 1644, tells of an old man of sixty years of age, 
whose whole knowledge of Jesus Christ had been derived from a 
miracle play "'Oh, sir,' said he, *I think I heard of that man 
you speak of once in a play at Kendall called Coi-piis Christi 
Play where there was a man on a tree and blood ran down.^ " 

IV. Thk Universities of That Day. 

Even the universities were not such schools as the name would 

to-day imply. 

The state of education was almost as unsettled as that of religion. The Uni- 
versities of Cambridge and Oxford were thronged with poor scholars, and eminent 
professors taught in the schools and colleges. But the Reformation had made sad 
havoc with their buildings and libraries, and the spirit of amusement had affected 
their studies.* 

The students turned much more readily to dissipation than to 
literature. In the year 1570, the scholars of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, consumed 2,250 barrels of beer!"* 

The knowledge of Greek had sensibly declined, but Latin was still cultivated 
with considerable success.* 

The number of scholars of the university fit for schoolmasters was small. 
"Whereas they make one scholar they n.arre ten," averred Peacham, who describes 
one specimen as whipping his boys on a cold morning "for no other purpose than 
to get himself a heate." •" 

The country swarmed to such an extent with scholars of the 
universities, who made a living as beggars, that Parliament had to 
interfere against the nuisance. By the act of 14th Elizabeth, "all 

' Goadby, England of Shak. , ■p. loi. ^Goadby, England, p. 97. ^Ibid., p. 97. 

^ Rogers, Work and Wages, p. 85. * Ibid., p. 73. ' Ibid., p. 99. 



THE EDUCATION OF IVILLL4M SHAKSPEKE. 31 

scholars of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge that go about 
begging, not being authorized under the seal of said universities," 
are declared "vagabonds," and punishable as such. 

V. "A Bookless Neighborhood." 

If this was the condition of the two great "twins of learning," 
sole centers of light in the darkness of a barbarous age, we can 
readily conceive what must have been the means of public educa- 
tion in the dirty little hamlet of Stratford, with its fifteen hundred 
untaught souls, its two hundred and fifty householders, and its 
illiterate officials. 

It was, as Halliwell-Phillipps has called it, "a bookless neigh- 
borhood." 

We have the inventory of the personal property of Robert 
Arden, Shakspere's mother's father, and the inventory of the per- 
sonal property of Agnes Arden, his widow, and the will of the 
same Agnes Arden, and any number of other wills, but in them all, 
in the midst of a plentiful array of "oxenne," "kyne," "sheepe," 
"pigges," "basons," "chafyng dyches," "toweles and dyepers," 
"shettes," "frying panes," "gredyerenes," "barrelles," "hansaws," 
"knedyng troghs," "poringers," "sawcers," " pott-hookes," and 
"linkes," we do not find reference to a single book, not even to a 
family Bible or a prayer-book. Everything speaks of a rude, coarse 
and unintellectual people. Here is an extract from the will of 
Agnes Arden, Shakspere's grandmother: 

I geve to the said Jhon Hill my best platter of the best sort, and my best 
platter of the second sorte, and j poringer, one sawcer and one best candlesticke. 
And I also give to the said Jhon one paire of sheetes. I give to the said Jhon 
my second pot, my best pan, . . . and one cow with the white rump. 

"One John Shakspeare, of Budbrook, near Warwick, considered 

it a sufficient mark of respect to his father-in-law to leave him 'his 

best boots.' '" 

y VI. A Gross Improbability. 

It would indeed be a miracle if out of this vulgar, dirty, illiter- 
ate family came the greatest genius, the profoiindest thinker, the 
broadest scholar that has adorned the annals of the human race. 
It is possible. It is scarcely probable. 

' Outlines Li/e 0/ Shak.^ p. 183. 



32 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



Professor Grant Allen, writing in the Science Monthly of March 
1882 (p. 591), and speaking of the life of Sir Charles Lyell, says: 

Whence did he come? What conditions went to beget him? From what 
stocks were his qualities derived, and why? These are the questions that must 
henceforth always be first asked when we have to deal with the life of any great 
man. For we have now learned that a great man is no unaccountable accident, no 
chance result of a toss-up on the part of nature, but simply the highest outcome 
and final efflorescence of many long ancestral lines, converging at last toward a 
single happy combination. 

Herbert Spencer says: 

If you assume that two European parents may produce a negro child, or that 
from woolly-haired prognathous Papuans may come a fair, straight-haired infant 
of Caucasian type, you may assume that the advent of the great man can occur 
anywhere and under any circumstances. If, disregarding these accumulated 
results of experience which current proverbs and the generalizations of psycholo- 
gists alike express, you suppose that a Newton might be born in a Hottentot 
family; that a Milton might spring up among the Andamanese; that a Howard or a 
Clarkson might have Fiji parents: then you may proceed with facility to explain 
social progress as caused by the actions of the great man. But if all biological 
science, enforcing all popular belief, convinces you that by no possibility will an 
Aristotle come from a father and mother with facial angles of fifty degrees; and 
that out of a tribe of cannibals, whose chorus in preparation for a feast of human 
flesh is a kind of rhythmical roaring, there is not the remotest chance of a 
Beethoven arising: then you must admit that the genesis of the great man depends 
on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he 
appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown. 

And it is to this social state, to this squalid village, that the 
great thinker of the human race, after association, as we are told, 
with courts and wits and scholars and princes, returned in middle 
life. He left intellectual London, which was then the center of 
mental activity, and the seat of whatever learning and refinement 
were to be found in England, not to seek the peace of rural land- 
scapes and breathe the sweet perfumes of gardens and hedge-rows, 
but to sit down contentedly in the midst of pig-sties, and to inhale 
the malarial odors from reeking streets and stinking ditches. To 
show that this is no exaggeration, let me state a few facts. 

Henry Smith, of Stratford, in 1605, is notified to " plucke downe 
his pigges cote, which is built nere the chappie wall, and the house 
of office there," And John Sadler, miller, is fined for bringing feed 
and feeding his hogs in "chappie lane." In 1613 John Rogers, the 
vicar, erected a pig-sty immediately opposite the back court of 
Shakspere's residence. For one hundred and fifty years after 
Shakspere's death, Chapel Ditch, which lay next to the New Place 



THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 



12, 



Garden^ " was a receptacle for all manner of filth that any person 
chose to put there."' It was four or five feet wide and filled for 
a foot deep with flowing filth. More than one hundred years 
after Shakspere's death, to-wit, in 1734, the Court Leet of Strat- 
ford presented Joseph Sawbridge, in Henley Street, " for not car- 
ring in his muck before his door." ^ 

The houses _were thatched with reeds. ^ 

The streets were narrow, irregular and without sidewalks; full 
of refuse, and lively with pigs, poultry and ravenous birds.'* 

The highways were "foule, long and cumbersome."^ Good 
bridges were so rare that in some cases they were ascribed to the 
devil. There was no mail service except between London and a 
few principal points. The postage upon a letter from Lynn to 
London was 26s. 8d., equal in value to about $30 of our money 
to-day. The stage wagons moved at the rate of two miles an hour. 
Places twelve miles apart were then practically farther removed 
than towns w^ould now be one hundred miles apart. There was 
little or no intercourse among the common people. Men lived and 
died where they were born. 

There were no carriages. The Queen imported a Dutch coach 
in 1564, the sight of which "put both man and horse in amaze- 
ment," remarks Taylor, the water poet. "Some said it was a great 
crab-shell, brought out of China, and some imagined it to be one 
of the pagan temples, in which the cannibals adored the devil." 
There were few chimneys; dining-room and kitchen were all one; 
"each one made his fire against the reredrosse in the hall where he 
dined and dressed his meat," says Harrison. The beds were of 
straw, with wooden bolsters (like the Chinese); the people ate out 
of wooden platters with wooden spoons. The churches were with- 
out pews and full of fleas.* 

VIL The English People in the Sixteenth Century. 

The people were fierce, jovial, rude, hearty, brutal and pugna- 
cious. They were great eaters of beef and drinkers of beer. We 
find them accurately described in the plays: 

• Outlines Life 0/ Sha/c, p. 429. ' Goadby's Engla7td 0/ Shak., p. 16. ^ Ibid. 

i' Ibid., p. 205. 4 Ibid. « Ibid., p. 75. 



34 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

The men do sympathise with the mastiffs, in robustious and rough coming-on, 
leaving their wits with their wives; and then give them great meals of beef, and 
iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.' 

They lived out of doors; they had few books, and, of course, no 
newspapers. Their favorite amusements were bear-baitings, bull- 
baitings, cock-fights, dog-fights, foot-ball and "rough-and-tumble 
fighting."^ The cock, having crowed when Peter denied his Mas- 
ter, was regarded as the devil's bird, and many clergymen enjoined 
cock-throwing, or throwing of sticks at cocks, as a pious exercise 
and agreeable to God. 

There were few vegetables upon the tables, and these were largely 
imported from Holland. The leaves of the turnip were used as a 
salad. Vegetables were regarded as medicines. No forks were used 
until i6i I, when the custom was imported from Italy. Tea came into 
England in 1610, and coffee in 1652. Beer or wine was used with 
all meals. Men and women went to the taverns and drank together. 

The speech of the country people was a barbarous jargon: we 
have some specimens of it in the plays. 

Take, for instance, the following from Lear: " 

Stewart. Let go his own. 

Edgar. Chill not go, zir, 

Without vurther 'casion. . . . 

Let poor volke passe: and chud ha' bin zwaggerd out of my life, 'twould not 
ha' bin zo long as 'tis, by a vortnight. . . . Keepe out of che vor'ye or ice try 
whither your Costard or my Ballow be the harder; chill be plaine with you.^ 

VIII. A Country School in Shakspere's Time. 

Halliwell-Phillipps says, speaking of Shakspere's education in. 

"the horn-book and the A, B, C": 

There were few persons at that time at Stratford-on-Avon capable of initiating 
him even into these preparatory accomplishments. ^ 

What manner of school was it in which he received all the edu- 
cation ever imparted to him ? 

The following is Roger Ascham's description of schools and 

schoolmasters in his day, as quoted by Appleton Morgan, in a 

newspaper article: 

It is pitie that commonly more care is had, yea, and that among verie wise 
men, to find out rather a cunnynge man for their horse, than a cunnynge man for 

1 Henry V., iii, 7. ^ Act iv, scene 6. 

2 Goadby's England, p. 69. ^ Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines Life 0/ ShaA:, p. 24, 



THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 35 

their children.' . , . The master mostly being as ignorant as the child, what to 
say properly and fitly to the matter.'^ They for the most part so behave themselves 
that their very name is hateful to the scholar, who trembleth at their coming-in, 
rejoiceth at their absence, and looketh him returned in the face as his deadly 
enemy. 

Mr. Morgan continues: 

To the charges of undue severity, says Drake, "we must add the accusation 
of immorality and buffoonery. They were put on the stage along with the zany 
and pantaloon, to be laughed at."^ 

As to school books, or other implements of instruction, except the following, 
viz. (to cite them in the order in which they were prized and employed): First, the 
birch rod; second, the church catechism; third, the horn-book or criss-cross row. 
Drake says,'' the thirty-ninth injunction of Elizabeth enacted that every grammar 
school "shall teach the grammar set forth by King Henry the VIII., of noble 
memory, and continued in the reign of Edward the VI., and none other." This 
was the Lily's Latin Grammar, and its study appears to have constituted the 
difference between a "school" and a "grammar school." Drake adds, "There 
was, however, another book which we may almost confidently affirm young 
Shakspere to have studied under the tuition of the master of the free grammar 
school at Stratford, the production of one Ockland, a panegyric on the characters 
and government of the reign of Elizabeth and her ministers, which was enjoined 
by authority to be read in every grammar school." Another te.xt-book which may 
have been extant was the one referred to by Ascham as follows; " I have formerly 
seen Mr. Herman's book, who was a master of Eton school. The book itself coulcf 
be of no great use, for, as I remember, it was only a collection of single sentences; 
without order or method, put into Latin." But the rod was for long years the 
principal instructor. Peter Mason, a pupil of'Nicholas Udal, master of Eton,. 
says he used to receive fifty-three lashes in the couYse of one Latin exercise. At 
that temple of learning, and from Dr. Busby's time downward, the authorities 
agree in giving it the foremost place in English curriculums. 

In The Conipleat Gentleman, edition of 1634, the author says a country 
school teacher "by no entreaty would teach any scholar further than his 
(the scholar's) father had learned before him; as, if he had but only learned 
to read English, the son, though he went with him seven years, should go 
no further. His reason was that they would otherwise prove saucy rogues and 
control their fathers. Yet these are they that have our hopeful gentry under 
their charge." 

Nay, in 1771, when Shakspere had been dead a century and a half, things 
were about as he left them. John Britton, who attended the provincial 
grammar school of Kingston, St. Nicholas parish, in Wilts, about 1771-80, says 
that he was taught the "criss-cross row," imparted by the learned pedagogue 
as follows: 

Teacher — "Commether Billy Chubb, an' breng the horren book. Ge ma the 
vester in the wendow, you Pat Came. What! be a sleepid ? I'll wake ye! Now, 
Billy, there's a good bway; ston still there, an' mind what I da za ta ye, an' whan 
I da point na! Criss-cross girta little A, B, C. That's right, Billy; you'll zoon 
larn criss-cross row; you'll zoon averg it, Bobby Jiffry! You'll zoon be a scoll- 
ard 1 A's a purty chubby bwoy, Lord love en! " 

1 Works, Bennett's edition, p. 212. 3 Shak. a>td His Times, vol. i, p. 97. 

2 Ibid., p. 12. ■• Ibid., p. 26. 



36 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

IX. English not Taught in the Schools of That Day. 

And it is very doubtful, as we have seen, whether English was 
taught at all in that Stratford school. It certainly was not in 
most of the grammar schools of England at that time. Even White 
is forced to admit this. He says: 

For book instruction there was the free grammar school of Stratford, well 
endowed by Thomas Jolyffe, in the reign of Edward IV., where, unless it differed 
from all others of its kind, he could have learned Latin and some Greek. Some 
English, too; but not finich, for English was held in scant by the scholars of those 
days, a7id long after. ' 

It will readily be conceded that in such a town, among such a 
people, and with such a school, Shakspere could have learned but 
little, and that little of the rudest kind. And to this conclusion 
even so stout a Shaksperean as Richard Grant White is driven. 
He says, in a recent number of the Atlantic magazine: 

Shakespeare was the son of a Warwickshire peasant, or very inferior yeoman, 
by the daughter of a well-to-do farmer. Both his father and mother were so igno- 
rant that they signed with a mark instead of writing their names. Few of their 
friends could write theirs. Shakespeare probably had a little instruction in Latin 
in the Stratford grammar school. When, at twenty-two years of age, he fled from 
Stratford to London, we may be sure that he had never seen half a dozen books other 
than his horn-book, his Latin accidence and a Bible. Probably there were not half a 
dozen others in all Stratford. The notion that he was once an attorney's clerk is 
blown to pieces. ' 

Where, then, did he acquire the vast learning demonstrated by 
the plays? 

X. Shakspere's Youthful Habits. 

There can be no doubt that the child is father to the man. 
While little Francis Bacon's youthful associates were enjoying their 
game of ball, the future philosopher was at the end of a tunnel 
experimenting in echoes. Pope "lisped in numbers, for the num- 
bers came." At nine years of age Charles Dickens (a sort of lesser 
Shakespeare) knew all about Falstaff, and the robbery at Gad's 
Hill, and had established the hope in his heart that he might some 
day own the handsome house in that place in which he afterward 
resided. It was his habit to creep away to a garret in his father's 
house, and there, enraptured, pore over the pages of Roderick Random, 
Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The Arabian Nights, , 

^ Li/e and Centtis o/ Shak.. p. 30. 



THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 



37 



The Vicar of Wakefield, and Robinson Crusoe. Dr. Glennie tells us of 
Byron, that in his boyhood "his reading in history and poetry was 
far beyond the usual standard of his age. . . . He was a great 
reader and admirer of the Old Testament, and had read it through 
and through before he was eight years old." At fifteen years of 
age Robert Burns had read The Spectator, Pope's works, some of 
Shakespeare's plays, 'Locke.' s Essay on tJie Human Under standifig, Allan 
Ramsay's works, and a number of religious books, and "had 
studied the English grammar and gained some knowledge of the 
French." 

Genius is a powerful predisposition, so strong that it overrules 
a man's whole life, from boyhood to the grave. The greatness of 
a mind is in proportion to its receptivity, its capacity to assimilate 
a vast mass of food; it is an intellectual stomach that eliminates 
not muscle but thought. Its power holds a due relation to its 
greed — it is an eternal and insatiable hunger. In itself it is but 
an instrument. It can work only upon external material. 

The writer of the plays recognizes this truth. He says, speaking 

of Cardinal Wolsey: 

F7-om his cradle 
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one, 
Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading.' 

The commentators have tried to alter the punctuation of 
this sentence. They have asked, "How could he be 'a scholar 
from his cradle ' ? " What the poet meant was that the extraor- 
dinary capacity to receive impressions and acquire knowledge, 
which constitutes the basis of the education of the infant, con- 
tinued with unabated force all through the life of the great church- 
man. The retention of this youthful impressibility of the mind is 
one of the essentials of greatness. 

And again the poet says: 

This morning, like the spirit of a youth 
That means to be of note, begins betimes.^ 

How did William Shakspere, the Stratford-on-Avon boy, "begin 

betimes "? 

„^. In his fourteenth year it is supposed he left school; but 

''there is really no proof that he ever attended school for an hour. 

1 Henry VIIT., iv, 2. ^ Antony and Cleopatra, iv, 2. 



38 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLA YS. 



White expresses the opinion that "William Shakespeare was 
obliged to leave school early and earn his living." 
^^_. At sixteen, tradition says, he was apprenticed to a butcher. 
Aubrey says: 

I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbors that when he was a 
boy he exercised his father's trade; but when he killed a calf he would doe it in a 
high style and make a speech. 

Rowe, speaking for Betterton, says, " Upon his leaving school 
he seems to have given entirely into that way of living which his 
father proposed to him," that of a dealer in wool. 

Neither the pursuit of butcher or wool-dealer could have been 
very favorable to the acquisition of knowledge in a rude age and a 
''bookless neighborhood." 

But perhaps the boy was of a very studious nature and his 
' industry eked out the poor materials available ? Let us see: 

There is a tradition of his youth setting forth that in the neigh- 
boring village of Bidford there was a society — not a literary society, 
not a debating club like that of which Robert Burns was a member 
— but a brutal crew calling themselves ''The Bidford Topers," 
whose boast was that they could dr^ink more beer than the " topers " 
of any of the adjoining intellectual villages. They challenged 
Stratford, and among the gallant young men who accepted the chal- 
lenge was William Shakspere. The "Bidford topers" were too 
many for the Stratford "topers," and the latter attempted to 
walk home again, but were so besotted that their legs gave out, 
and they spent the night by the roadside under a large crab-tree, 
which stands to this day and is known as " Shakspere's crab." As the 
imagination sees him, stretched sodden and senseless, beneath the 
crab-tree, we may apply to him the words of the real Shakespeare: 

O monstrous beast ! — how like a swine he lies.' 

The first appearance of the father is connected with a filth- 
heap. The first recorded act of the son is this spirituelle contest. 

The next incident in the life of Shakspere occurred when he 
was nineteen years old. This was his marriage to a girl of twenty- 
seven, that is to say, eight years older than himself. Six months 
after the marriage their first child was born. 

' Taming of the Shrew, 



THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 39 

But perhaps, after this inauspicious match, he settled down and 
devoted himself to study ? Not at all. 

The Reverend William Fulman, an antiquary, who died in 
1688, bequeathed his manuscript biographical memoranda to 
the Reverend Richard Davies, rector of Sapperton, in Gloucester- 
shire, and archdeacon of Lichfield, who died in 1708. To a note 
of Fulman's, which barely records Shakspere's birth, death 
and occupation, Davies made brief additions, the principal of 
which is that William Shakspere was " much given to all 
unluckinesse in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from 
Sir Lucy, wJio had him oft ivhipt and sometimes imprisoned, 
and at last made him fly his native county, to his great ad- 
vancement." 

The man who wrote this was probably born within little more 
than twenty-five years after Shakspere's death. The tradition 
comes to us also from other sources. 

The same story is told by Rowe, on the authority of Betterton, 
w^ho went down to Stratford to collect materials for a life of 
Shakspere. Rowe says: 

He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill com- 
pany, and amongst them some, that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, 
engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of 
Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, 
as he thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to revenge that ill- 
usage he made a ballad upon him. And although this, probably the first 
essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that 
it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged 
to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time and shelter 
himself in London. 

A pretended specimen of the ballad has come down to us, a 
rude and vulgar thing: 

A parliament member, a justice of peace, 
At home a poor scare-crow, at London an asse. 
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then Lucy is lowsie whatever befall it. 

He thinks himself great. 

Yet an ass is his state; 
We allow by his ears but with asses to mate. 
If Lucy is lowsie as some volke miscalle it. 
Sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it. 

And touching this Sir Thomas Lucy, Richard Grant White, 
after visiting Stratford and Charlecote, speaks as follows: 



40 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

This was a truly kindly nature, we may almost say a noble soul. I am with 
Sir Thomas in this matter, and if Shakespeare suffered any discipline at his hands> 
I believe that he deserved it.' 

XI. Shakspere Goes to London. 

He proceeded to London ** somewhere about 1586 or 1587," say 
his biographers. His twin children, Hamnet and Judith, had been 
born in February, 1585. 

We can readily conceive his condition. His father was bank- 
rupt; his own family rapidly increasing — his wife had just been 
delivered of twins; his home was dirty, bookless and miserable; 
his companions degraded; his pursuits low; he had been whipped 
and imprisoned, and he fled, probably penniless, to the great city. 
As his admirer, Richard Grant White, says, " we may be sure he had 
never seen half a dozen books other than his horn-book, his Latin 
accidence, and a Bible." There is indeed no certainty that he had 
ever seen even the last work, for neither father nor mother could 
read or write, and had no use for, and do not seem to have pos- 
sessed, a Bible. 

Says Halliwell-Phillipps : 

Removed prematurely from school; residing with illiterate relatives in a book- 
less neighborhood; thrown into the midst of occupations adverse to scholastic prog- 
ress, it is difficult to believe that when he left Stratford he was not all but destitute 
0/ polished accomplishments.'^ 

To London fled all the adventurers, vagabonds and paupers of 
the realm. They gathered around the play-houses. These were 
rude structures, open to the heavens — sometimes the roofless yard 
of a tavern served as the theater, and a rough scaffold as the stage. 
Here the ruffians, the thieves, the vagabonds, the apprentices, the 
pimps and the prostitutes assembled — a stormy, dirty, quarrelsome 
multitude. Here William Shakspere came. He was, we will con- 
cede, bright, keen and active, intent on getting ahead in the worlds 
fond of money, but poor as poverty and ignorant as barbarism. 
What could he do? 

XII. He Becomes a Horse-holder, 

He took to the first thing that presented itself, holding horses 
at the door of the play-house for the young gentlemen who came to 
witness the performance. And this, tradition assures us, he did. 

"^England Without and Within^ p. 514. ^ Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines Life 0/ Shak., f. 63. 



THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 41 

He proved trustworthy, and the youthful aristocrats would call, we 
are told, for Will Shakspere to hold their horses. Then his busi- 
ness faculty came into play, and he organized a band of assistants, 
who were known then, and long afterward, as " Shakspere's boys." 
Gradually he worked his way among the actors. 

— Y XIII. He Becomes a Call-boy, and then an Actor, 

Betterton heard that " he was received into the company at first 
in a very mean rank;" and the octogenarian parish clerk of Strat- 
ford told Dowdall, in 1693, that he "was received into the play- 
house as a serviture " — that is, as a servant, a supernumerary, or 
" supe." Tradition says he was the prompter's call-boy, his duty 
being to call the actors when it was time for them to go upon the 
stage. In time he rose a step higher: he became an actor. He 
never was a great actor, but performed, we are told, insignificant 
parts. " He seems," says White, " never to have risen high in this 
profession. The Ghost in Hamlet^ and old Adam in As You Like Ity 
were the utmost of his achievements in this direction." 

It must have taken him some time, say a year or two at the very 
least, to work up from being a vagabond horse-holder to the career 
of a regular actor. We will see, when we come to discuss the chro- 
nology of the plays, that they began to appear almost as soon as he 
reached London, if not before, although Shakspere's name was not 
connected with them for some years thereafter. And the earliest 
plays, as we shall see, were the most scholarly, breathing the very 
atmosphere of the academy. 

XIV. No Tradition Refers to Him as a Student or Scholar. 

There was certainly nothing in his new surroundings in London 
akin to Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and Danish studies; 
there was nothing akin to medical, musical and philosophical 
researches. 

And assuredly his life in Stratford, reckless, improvident, dissi- 
pated, degraded, does not represent the studious youth who, in 
some garret, would pore over the great masters, and fill his mind 
with information, and his soul with high aspirations. There is not 
a single tradition which points to any such element in his character. 

Aubrey asserts that, from the time of leaving school until his 
departure for Warwickshire, Shakspere was a schoolmaster. We 



42 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

have seen that it did not require a very extensive stock of learning 

to constitute a schoolmaster in that age; but even this, the only 

tradition of his life which points to anything even akin to scholarly 

accomplishments, must be abandoned. 

Lord Campbell says: 

Unfortunately, however, the pedagogical theory is not only quite unsupported 
by evidence, but it is not consistent with established facts. From the registration 
of the baptism of Shakespeare's children, and other well authenticated circum- 
stances, we know that he continued to dwell in Stratford, or the immediate neigh- 
borhood, till he became a citizen of London: there was no other school in Stratford 
except the endowed grammar school, where he had been a pupil; of this he cer- 
tainly never was master, for the unbroken succession of masters from the reign 
of Edward VI. till the reign of James I. is of record; . . . and there is no trace of 
there having been any usher employed in this school.' 

Only a miracle of studiousness could have acquired, in a few 
years, upon a basis of total ignorance and bad habits, the culture 
and refinement manifested in the earliest plays; and but a few 
years elapsed between the time when he fled scourged from Strat- 
ford and the time when the plays began to appear, in his name, in 
London. Put plays, now believed to have been written by the 
same hand that wrote the Shakespeare plays, were on the boards 
befo7-e he left Stratford. The twins, Judith and Hamnet, were born 
in February, 1585, Shakspere being then not yet twenty-one years 
of age, and we will see hereafter that Hamlet appeared for the first 
time in 1585 or 1587. If he had shown, anywhere in his career, such 
a trait of immense industry and scholarly research, some tradition 
virould have reached us concerning it. We have traditions that he 
was the father of another man's supposed son (Sir William Dave- 
nant); and we are told of a licentious amour in which he outwitted 
Burbage; and we hear of 7t''6'/-combats in a tavern; but not one 
word comes down to us of books, or study, or industry, or art. 

XV. The "Venus and Adonis." 

"The first heir of his invention," he tells us, was "the Vejius and 
Adonis" published in 1593; and many think that this means that he 
wrote it before any of the plays, and even before he left Stratford. 

Richard Grant White says: 

In any case, we may be sure that the poem [ Venus and Adonis] was written 
some years before it was printed; and it may have been brought by the young poet 

' Shakespeare^ s Legal Acquirements., p. 19. 



THE EDUCATION- OF WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE. 



43 



\ 



"from Stratford in manuscript, and read by a select circle, according to the custom 
-of the time, before it was published. 

But here is a difficulty that presents itself: the people of War- 
'wickshire did not speak the English of the London court, but a 
patois almost as different from it as the Lowland Scotch of Burns is 
to-day different from the English of Westminster. 

To give the reader some idea of the kind of language used by 
Shakspere during his youth, and by all the uneducated people of 
his county, I select, at random, a few words from the Warwick- 
shire dialect: 

Tageous, troublesome; Fameled, starving; 

Kiver, a butter tub; Brevet, to snulT, to sniff; 

Grinsard, the turf; Unked, solitary; 

Slammocks, untidy; Roomthy, spacious; 

He's teddin, he's shaking up hay; Mulled, sleepy; 

He do fash hisself, he troubles himself; Glir, to slide; 

Cob, thick; Work, a row, a quarrel; 

Gidding, thoughtless; Whittaw, a saddler; 

jackbonnial, a tadpole; Still, respectable; 

Cade, tame; Her's childing, she is with child; 

A' done worritin me, stop teasing me; A' form, properly; 

Let's gaig no', let's take a swing; Yawrups, stupid; 

Franzy, passionate; etc. 

Let any one read the Venus and Adonis, and he will find it 
Avritten in the purest and most cultured English of the age, without 
a word in it of this Warwickshire /(?/6'/j'. 

Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

It is extremely improbable that an epic so highly finished, and so completely 
devoid of patois, could have been produced under the circumstances of his then 
domestic surroundings.' 

In fact, if we except the doggerel libel on Sir Thomas Lucy, with 
its " volke " (and the authenticity of even this is denied by the com- 
mentators), Shakspere never wrote a line impregnated with the 
dialect of the people among whom he lived from childhood to man- 
hood. All attempts to show the peculiar phraseology of Warwick- 
shire in his writings have failed. A few words have been found that 
were used in Warwickshire, but investigation has shown that they 
were also used in the dialects of other portions of England. 

White says: 

As long as two hundred years after that time the county of each member of 
Parliament was betrayed by his tongue; but then the speech of the cultivated 

^Outlines Li'/e of Shak., p. 71. 



44 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE FLAYS. 



people of Middlesex and vicinity had become for all England the undisputed stand- 
ard. Northumberland, or Cornwall, or Lancashire, might have produced Shake- 
speare's mind; but had he lived in any one of these counties, or in another, like 
them remote in speech as in locality from London, and written for his rural neigh- 
bors instead of the audiences of the Blackfriars and the Globe, the music of his 
poetry would have been lost in sounds uncouth and barbarous to the general ear, 
and the edge of his fine utterance would have been turned upon the stony rough- 
ness of his rustic phraseology.' 

White seems to forget that the jargon of Warwickshire was 
well nigh as uncouth and barbarous as that of Northumberland 
or Cornwall. 

Appleton Morgan says: 

Now, even if, in Stratford, the lad had mastered all the Latin and Greek 
extant, this poem, dedicated to Southampton, coming from his pen, is a mystery, if 
not a miracle. The genius of Robert Burns found its expression in the idiof?i of 
his father and his mother, in the dialect he heard around him, and into which he 
was born. When Jie came to London and tried to warble in urban English, his 
genius dwindled into formal commonplace. /But William Shakespeare, a peasant, 
born in the heart of Warwickshire, without/schooling or practice, pours forth the 
purest and most sumptuous of English, unmixed with the faintest trace of that 
Warwickshire /rt/^/j- that his neighbors and coetaneans spoke — the language of his 
own fireside.^ / 

And Shakespeare prefaced the Venus and Adonis with a Latin 

quotation from the Affwres of Ovid. Halliwell-Phillipps, an earnest 

Shaksperean, says: 

It is hardly possible that the Amoves of Ovid, whence he derived his earliest 
motto, could have been one of his school books. ^ 

No man can doubt that the Venus and Adonis was the work of a 

scholar in whom the intellectual faculties vastly preponderated 

over the animal, Coleridge notices — 

The utter aloofness of the poet's own feelings from those of which he is at once 
the painter and the analyst. 

Says Dowden: 

The subjects of these poems did not possess him and compel him to render 
them into art. The poet sat himself down before each to accomplish an exhaustive 
study of it. 

Hazlitt says: 

These poems appear to us like a couple of ice houses. They are about as hard, 
as glittering and as cold. 

It is not possible for the human mind to bring these beautiful 
poems, written in such perfect English, so cold, so passionless, so 

' Life and Genius of Shak.., p. 202. "^ The Shakespeare Myth, p. 41. 

^ Outlines Life of S/iak., p. 63. 



THE EDUCATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 45 

cultured, so philosophical, so scholastic, into connection with the 
first inventions of the boy we have seen lying out drunk in the 
fields, poaching, rioting, whipped, imprisoned, and writing vulgar 
doggerel, below the standard of the most ordinary intellect. Com- 
pare for one instant: 

/ A Parliament member, a justice of peace, 

At home a poor scare-crow, at London an asse. 
He thinks himself great, yet an ass is his state, 
Condemned for his ears with asses to mate, 
with — ^ 

Oh, what a sight it was wistly to view 

How she came stealing to the wayward boy ! 
To note the fighting conflict of her hue ! 
How white and red each other did destroy ! 
But now her cheek was pale, and by and by 
It flashed forth fire, as lightning from the sky.' 

Can any one believe that these two passages were born in the 
same soul and fashioned in the same mind ? 

A rough but strong genius, coming even out of barbarian train- 
ing, but thrown into daily contact with dramatic entertainments, 
might have begun to imitate the works he was familiar with; 
might gradually have drifted into play-making. But here we learn 
that the first heir of his invention was an ambitious attempt at a 
literary performance based on a classical fable, and redolent of the 
air of the court and the schools. / It is incomprehensible, 

Even Hallam, years ago, was struck by the incongruity between 
Shakspere's life and works. He says: 

If we are not yet come to question his [Shakespeare's] unity, as we do that of 
" the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle " — (an improvement in critical acuteness 
doubtless reserved for a distant posterity), we as little feel the power of identifying 
the young man who came up from Stratford, was afterwards an indifferent player 
in a London theater, and retired to his native place in middle life, with the author 
of Macbeth and Lear.- 

Emerson says: 

Read the antique documents extricated, analyzed and compared, by the assidu- 
ous Dyce and Collier; and now read one of those skiey sentences — aerolites — 
which seem to have fallen out of heaven, . . . and tell me if they match. ^ 

. . . The Egyptian verdict of the Shakesperean societies comes to mind, that 
he was a jovial actor and manager. Cl cannot marry this fact to his verse. Other 
admirable men have led lives in some~5rrrt of keeping with their thought; but this 
man in wide contrast. . . . This man of men, he who gave the science of mind a 
new and larger subject than had ever existed, and planted the standard of humanity 

' Venus ajid Adonis. ^ Introduction to Literature 0/ Europe. ^ Rcf. Men, p. 205. 



46 WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID XOT IVKITE THE PLAYS. 

ity some furlongs forward in chaos — it must ever go into the world's history, that 
the best poet led an obscure and profane life, using his genius for the public amuse- 
ment.' 

Such a proposition cannot be accepted by any sane man. 
Francis Bacon seems to have had these plays in his mind's eye 
when he said: 

If the sow with her snout should happen to imprint the letter A upon the 
ground, wouldst thou therefore imagine that she could write out a whole tragedy as. 
one letter P'* 

' Rcpreseniative Men, p. 215. "^Interpretation 0/ Nature. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE REAL CHARACTER OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 

What a thrice-double ass 
Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, 
And worship this dull fool. 

Tempest^ v, i. 

WE have seen that the Plays must have been written by a 
scholar, a man of wide and various learning. 

We have seen that William Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon, 
could not have acquired such learning in his native village, and 
that his pursuits and associates in London were not favorable to 
its acquisition there ; and that there is no evidence from tradition 
or history, or by the existence of any books or papers, or letters, 
that he was of a studious turn of mind, or in anywise scholarly. 
We have further seen that the families of his father and mother were, 
and had been for generations, without exception, rude and bookless. 

Now let us put together all the facts in our possession, and try 
to get at some estimate of the true character of the man himself. 

He was doubtless, as tradition says, **the best of that family." 
His career shows that he was adventurous, and what we call in 
America " smart." His financial success demonstrates this fact. 
He had probably a good deal of mother wit and practical good 
sense. It is not impossible that he may have been able to string 
together barbaric rhymes, some of which have come down to us. 
But conceding all this, and a vast gulf still separates him from the 
colossal intellect made manifest in the Plays. 

I. Shakspere was a Usurer. 

The probabilities are that he was a usurer. 

Richard Grant White (and it is a pleasure to quote against 
Shakspere so earnest a Shaksperean — one who declares that 
every man who believes Bacon wrote the Plays attributed to 
Shakspere should be committed at once to a mad-house) — Rich- 
ard Grant White says: 

47 



48 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

The following passage, in a tract called RatseVs Ghost, of the Second Part of 
his Mad Prankcs and Robberies, of which only one copy is known to exist, plainly 
refers, first to Burbadge and 7iext to Shakespeare. This book is without date, but is 
believed to have been printed before 1606. Gamaliel Ratsei, who speaks, is a 
highwayman, who has paid some strollers forty shillings for playing for him, and 
afterwards robbed them of their fee.' 

The passage is as follows: 

And for you, sirrah (says he to the chiefest of them), thou hast a good presence 
upon a stage, methinks thou darkenest thy merit by playing in the country; get thee 
to London, for if one man were dead they will have much need of such as thou art. 
There would be none, in my opinion, fitter than thyself to play his parts; my 
conceit is such of thee that I durst venture all the money in my purse on thy head 
to play Hamlet v/ith him for a wager. There thou shalt learn to be frugal (for play- 
ers were never so thrifty as they are now about London), and to feed upon all men; 
to let none feed upon thee; to make thy hand a stranger to thy pocket; thy heart slow 
to perform thy tongue's promise; and when thou feelest thy purse well lined, buy 
thee soDie place of lordship in the country; that growing weary of playing thy money 
may there bring thee to dignity and reputation ; then thou needest care for no man; 
710, not for them that before made thee proud with speaking THEIR -ivords on the stage. 

Sir, I thank you (quoth the player) for this good council. I promise you I will 
make use of it, for I have heard, indeed, of some that have gone to London very 
meanly, and have come in time to be exceeding wealthy. 

This curious tract proves several things: 

The Shakspereans agree that Ratsei, in the latter part of the 
extract quoted, referred unquestionably to Shakspere. Ratsei, or 
the writer of the tract, doubtless expressed the popular opinion 
when he described Shakspere as a thrifty, money-making, unchari- 
table, cold-hearted man, "feeding upon all men," to-wit, by lend- 
ing money at usurious rates of interest, for there is nothing else 
to which the words can apply. There can be no question that 
he refers to Shakspere. He was an actor; he came to London, 
"very meanly;" //<? was not born there; Jie "lined his purse;" he 
had "grown exceeding wealthy; " he " bought a place of lordship in 
the country," where he lived "in dignity and reputation." And 
doubtless Ratsei spoke but the popular report when he said that 
some others " made him proud with speaking their words on the 
stage." 

Let us see if there is anything that confirms Ratsei's estimate 

of Shakspere's character. Richard Grant White says: 

The fact is somewhat striking in the life of a great poet that the only letter 
directly addressed to Shakespeare, which is known to exist, is one which asks for 
a loan of ;^3o.- 

' Life and Genizis of Sliakesfieare. p. i''4. - Ibid., p. 123. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OF lilLLElAf SJ/AKSFERE. 



49 



There is another letter extant from Master Abraham Sturley, 
^595> to a friend in London, in reference to Shakspere lending: 
"some monei on some od yardc land ox other att Shottri or neare 
about us." And there is still another letter, dated November 4, 
1598, from Abraham Sturley to Richard Quiney, in which we are 
told that our "countriman Mr. Wm. Shak. yNow\di procure us monei ^. 
wc. I will like of." And these, be it remembered, are all the letters 
extant addressed to, or referring to, Shakspere. 

In 1598 he loaned Richard Quiney, of Stratford, ^30 upon 
proper security.' 

In 1600 he brought action against John Clayton, in London, for 
^7, and got judgment in his favor. 

He also sued Philip Rogers, at Stratford, for two shillings 
loaned. 

In August, 1608, he prosecuted John Addenbroke to recover a 
debt of ^6, and then sued his surety, Horneby. 

His lawyer, Thomas Greene, lived in his house." 

Halli well-Phillips says: 

The precepts, as appears from memoranda in the originals, were issued by 
the poet's solicitor, Thomas Greene, who was then residing, under some unknown 
conditions, at New Place. -^ 

We, of course, only hear of those transactions in which the 
debtor did not pay, and the loans became matters of court record- 
We hear nothing of the more numerous instances where the money 
was repaid without suit. But even these scraps of fact show that 
he carried on the business of money-lending both in London and at' 
Stratford. He kept an attorney in his house, probably for the better 
facility of collecting the money due him. 

No wonder Richard Grant White said, when such facts as these 

came to light, voicing the disappointment of his heart: 

These stories grate upon our feelings. . . . The pursuit of an impoverished! 
man, for the sake of imprisoning him and depriving him, both of the power of pay- 
ing his debt and supporting himself and his family, is an incident in Shakespeare's, 
life which it requires the utmost allowance and consideration for the practice of the 
time and country to enable us to contemplate with equanimity- — satisfaction is- 
impossible. The biographer of Shakespeare must record these facts, because the 
literary antiquaries have unearthed and brought them forward as new particulars: 
of the life of Shakespeare. We hunger, and we receive these husks; we open our 
mouths for food, and we break our teeth against these stones."* 

' Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines Life of Shak., p. 105. ^ Ibid., p. 147. 

^ Ih>id., p. 149. 4 Li/c and Genius 0/ Shak., p. 146. 



5° 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



Y 



Is it possible that the man who described usurers as " bawds 
between gold and want;" who drew, for all time, the typical and 
dreadful character of Shylock; who wrote: — 

1 can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale, that plays and 
tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them at a mouthful. 
Such whales I have heard of on land, who never leave gaping till they have swal- 
lowed up a whole parish, church, steeple, bells and all.' — 

could, as described by White, have pursued the wretched to jail, 
and by his purchase of the tithes of Stratford have threatened " the 
whole parish, church, steeple, bells and all " ? 

II. FIe Carried on Brewing in New Place. 

Let us pass to another fact. 

It is very probable that the alleged author of Hamlet carried on 
the business of brewing beer in his residence at New Place. 

He sued Philip Rogers in 1604, so the court records tell us, for 

several bushels of " malt " sold him at various times, between March 

27th and the end of May of that year, amounting in all to the 

value of jQ\ \^s. \od. 

Malt is barley or other grain steeped in water until it germinates, and then 
dried in a kiln to evolve the saccharine principle. It is used in brewing.'- 

The business of beer-making was not unusual among his towns- 
men. 

George Perrye, besides his glover's trade, useth buying and selling of woU 
[wool] and yorn [yarn] and making of malt} 

Robert Butler, besides his glover's occupation, usethe )?iakinge of matt * 

Rychard Castell, Rother Market, useth his glover's occupation, /lis wiffe utter- 
eth weektyc by bniynge [brewing] ij strikes of malte.-^ 

And we read of a Mr. Persons who for a "longe tyme used 
makinge of mallte and bruyinge [brewing] to sell in his howse."" 

There is, of course, nothing dishonorable in this humble occu- 
pation ; but it is a little surprising that a man who in the Plays never 
refers to tradesmen without a sneer, or to the common people 
except as " mechanic slaves" " that made the air unwholesome" 
throwing up " their stinking greasy caps," a " common cry of curs," 
or "the clusters," "the mutable, the rank-scented many," or " the 
beastly plebeians;" and whose sympathies seem to have been always 

> Pericles, ii, i. 3 MS. dated 1595. " Ibid. 

2 Webster s Dictionary. ^ Ibid. « Ibid. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 



51 



with the aristocracy, should convert the finest house in Stratford, 
built by Sir Hugh Clopton, into a brewery, and employ himself 
peddling out malt to his neighbors, and suing them when they did 
not pay promptly. 

Think of the author of Hamlet and Lear brewing beer ! Verily, 
"the dust of Alexander may come to stop the bung-hole of a beer- 
barrel." --r\^ 

III. Shakspere's Hospitality. 

And taken in connection with this sale of malt there is another 
curious fact that throws some light upon the character of the man 
and the household. 

In the Chamberlain's accounts of Stratford' we find a charge, 
in 1614, for " on quart of sack and on quart of clarett wine geven to 
a preacher at the New Place," Shakspere's house. What manner 
of man must he have been wJw would i-equire the toivn to pay for the 
u'ijie he furnished his guests ? And we may be sure the town would 
not have paid for it unless first asked to do so. And the money 
was accepted by Shakspere, or it would not stand charged in the 
accounts of the town. And this was but two years before Shak- 
spere's death, when he was in possession of an immense income. 
Did ever any rich man, with the smallest instincts of a gentleman, 
do a deed like this ? Would even the poorest of the poor do it ? 
It was, in fact, a species of "going on the county " for help, — a 
partial pauperism. 

IV. He Attempts to Enter the Ranks of the Gentry by 

False Representations. 

Some one has said: "To be accounted a gentleman was the 
chief desire of Shakspere's life." 

Did he pursue this ambition, honorable enough in itself, in an 
honorable manner? 

In October, 1596, Shakspere, the actor, applied to the College 
of Arms for a grant of coat-armor to his father, John Shakspere. 
At this time Shakspere was beginning to make money. He 
bought New Place, Stratford, in 1597. His profession as a "vassal 
actor " prevented any hope of having a grant of arms made 

1 White, Li/e and Genius of Shak., p. 176. 



C2 it J/ /./AM S/JAKSPEKE DID NOT WK/TE T//E /'LAYS. 

directly to himself, and so he applied in the name of his father, 

who not long before had been in prison, or hiding from- the Sheriff. 

White would have us believe that the coat-of-arms was granted;. 

but the latest and most complete authority on the subject, Halliwell- 

Phillipps, says it was not: 

Toward the close of the year 1599, a renewed attempt was made by the poet 
to obtain a grant of coat-armor to his father. It was now proposed to impale the 
arms of Shakespeare with those of Arden, and on each occasion ridicttlous state- 
ments were made respecting t/te claims of t/ie t'loo families. Bot/i were really descended 
from obscure country vcomeii, but the heralds made out that the predecessors of 
John Shakespeare were rewarded by the Crown for distinguished services, and 
that his wife's ancestors were entitled to armorial bearings. Alt/ioug/i the Poet's 
relatives, at a later date, assumed /lis rig/it to t/ie coat suggested for his father in 
1596, it does not appear t/iat eit/ier of t/ie proposed grattts 7vas rati fed by t/te college, 
and certainly nothing more is heard of the Arden impalement.' 

The application was made on the ground that John Shak- 
spere's " parent and late antecessor, for his faithful and approved 
service to the late most prudent prince. King Henry VII., of 
famous memory, was advanced and rewarded with lands and tene- 
ments given to him in those parts of Warwickshire, . . . and 
that the said John had married the daughter and one of the heirs 
of Robert Arden, of Wilmecote." 

Now, these statements, as Halliwell-Phillipps says, ivcrc plainly 
false. 

John Shakspere's ancestors had tiot been advanced by King 
Henry VII.; and they had not received lands in Warwickshire; and 
his mother was not the daughter of one of the heirs of Robert 
Arden, of WWm&cote, gentleman. They had been landless peasants, 
for generations; and John Shakspere was an illiterate farm-hand, 
hired by Robert Arden, a plain farmer, as illiterate as himself, to 
work by the month or year. 

And William Shakspere, who made this application, knew per- 
fectly well that all these representations were falsehoods. He was 
trying to crawl up the battlements of respectability on a ladder of 
lies — plain, palpable, notorious, ridiculous lies — lies that involved 
the title to real property and the records of his county. 

Would that grand and noble soul who really wrote the Plays 
seek to be made a. gentleman by such means ? 

But the falsifications did not end here. 

' OKttines, p. 87. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OE IVH.I.IAM SJIAKSPERE. 53 

" The delay of three years," says Richard Grant White, '* in 
granting these arms, must have been caused by some opposition to 
the grant; the motto given with them, Non sans droict (not with- 
out right), itself seems to assert a claim against a denial." 

Doubtless the Lucys, and other respectable families of the neigh- 
borhood, protested against the play-actor forcing himself into their 
ranks by false pretenses. 

If the reader who is curious in such matters will turn to the two 
drafts of the application for the coat-of-arms, that of 1596, on page 
573 of Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, and that of 1599, on page 589 
of the same work, and examine the interlineations that were made 
from time to time, and which are indicated by italics, he will see 
how the applicant was driven from falsehood to falsehood, to meet 
the objections made against his claim of gentility. In the first 
application it was stated that it was John Shakspere's "parents 
and late antecessors" who rendered valiant service to King Henry 
VII. and were rewarded by him. This was not deemed sufficiently 
explicit, and so it was interlined that the said John had " married 
Mary, daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden, of Wilme- 
cote, in the said county, ^cnt.''' But in the proposed grant of 1599 
it is stated that it was John Shakspere's _^r^«/-grandfather who ren- 
dered these invaluable services to King Henry VII., and, being 
driven to particulars, we are now told that this grandfather was 
"advanced and rewarded with laiidcs and tcnei7ientcs given to /lini in 
f /lose partes of WarwicksJiire, where they have continued by some descents 
in good repiitacion and credit." 

This is wholesale lying. There were no such lands, and they 
had not descended by some descents in the family. 

But this is not all. Finding his application opposed, the fertile 
Shakspere falls back on a new falsehood, and declares that a coat- 
of-arms had already been given his father twenty years before. 

And he also produced tliis, his auncient cote-of-arms, heretofore assigned to him 
whilst he was her Majestie's officer and baylefe of that town. 

And White tells us that upon the margin of tlie draft of 1596, 
John Shakspere 

Sheweth a patent thereof under Clarence Cook's hands in paper, twenty years 
past.' 

' Liye and Genius 0/ S7iakcs/>carc, p. 118. 



54 



WILLIAM SHAKSPEKE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



But this patent can no more be found than the land whieJi Henry VI J . 
granted to John Shakspere's great-grandfather for his approved and 
faithful services. 

The whole thing was a series of lies and forgeries, a tissue of 
fraud from beginning to end ; — and William Shakspere had no 
^more title to his coat-of-arms than he has to the great dramas 
"' ,' which bear his name. 

And living in New Place, brewing beer, selling malt and suing 
his neighbors, the Shakspere family assumed to use this coat-of- 
arms, ne7'er granted to the/n, and to set up for "gentry," in the midst 
of the people who knew the hollowness of their pretensions. K 

And the same man, we are told, who was so anxious for this 
kind of a promotion to the ranks of gentlemen, wrote as follows: 

Fool. Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman beagentleman or a yeoman. 
Lear. A king, a king ! 

Foot. No, he's a yeoman, that has a gentleman to his son; for he's a mad yeo- 
man that sees his son a gentleman before him.' 

And that the same man mocked at new-made gentility, in the 
scene where the clown and the old shepherd were suddenly ele- 
vated to rank by the king of Bohemia: 

Shepherd. Come, boy; I am past more children, l)ut thy sons and daughters 
will all be gentlemen born. 

Clown {to Autolyetts). You are well met, sir; you denied to fight with me this 
> other day because I was no gentleman born. See you these clothes ? . . . 

Aiitolyeiis. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born. 

Cloivn. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours. 

Shepherd. And so have I, boy. 

Clo'toi. So you have. But I was a gentleman born before my father; for the" 
king's son took me by the hand and called me brother: . . . and so we wept: and 
these were the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed.'- 

And that the same man wrote: 

By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it: the age is 
grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier 
that he galls his kibe.^ 

And this is the man, we are told, who also wrote: 

Let none presume 
To wear an undeserved dignity. 
Oh, that estates, degrees and offices 
Were not derived corruptly ! and that clear honor 
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer ! 
How many then should cover that stand bare; 

' Lear^ iii, 6. ^ Whiter^ s Tah\ V, 3. ^ Naiiiiet, V, 1. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OF IVILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 55 

How many be commanded that command; 
How much low peasantry would then be gleaned 
From the true seed of honor; and how much honor 
Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times 
To be new-varnish'd.' 

Is there any man who loves the memory of the real Shake- 
speare — gentle, thoughtful, learned, humane, benevolent, with a 
mind loftier and wider than was ever before conferred on a child 
of earth — who can believe that he would be guilty of such prac- 
tices, even to obtain a shabby gentility in the dirty little village of 
Stratford ? 

All this may not perhaps strike an American with its full force. 

In this country every well-dressed, well-behaved man is a i^c/it/c- 
man. But in England in the sixteenth century it meant a great 
deal more. It signified a man of gentle blood. A great and impass- 
able gulf lay between "the quality," "the gentry," the hereditary 
upper Class, and the common herd who toiled for a living. It 
required all the power of Christianity to faintly enforce the idea 
that they were made by the same God and were of one flesh. 
The distinction, in the England of 1596, between the yeoman and 
the gentleman, was almost as wide as the difference to-day in 
America between the white man and the black man; and the 
mulatto who would try to pass himself off as a white man, and 
would support his claim by lies and forgeries, will give us some 
conception of the nature of this attempt made by William Shak- 
spere in 1596. 

V. The House in Which he Was Born. 

As to this I will simply quote what Richard Grant White says 
of it: 

My heart sank within me as I looked around upon the rude, mean dwelling- 
place of him who had filled the world with the splendor of his imaginings. It is 
called a house, and any building intended for a dwelling-place is a house; but the 
interior of this one is hardly that of a rustic cottage; it is almost that of a hovel — 
poverty-stricken, squalid, kennel-like. A house so cheerless and comfortless I had 
not seen in rural England. The poorest, meanest farm-house that I had ever 
entered in New England or on Long Island was a more cheerful habitation. And 
amid these sordid surroundings William Shakespeare grew to early manhood ! I 
thought of stately Charlecote, the home of the Lucys, who were but simple country 
gentlemen; and then for the first time I knew and felt from how low a condition of 

* ]\Icrcliant o/ I'enicc^ ii, 9. 



56 



nil.I.lAM SIJAKSFEKE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



life Shakespeare had arisen. For his family were not reduced to this; they had 
risen to it. This was John Shakespeare's home in the days of his brief prosperity, 
and, when I compared it with my memory of Charlecote, I knew that Shakespeare 
himself must have felt what a sham was the pretension of gentry set up for his 
father, when the coat-of-arms was asked and obtained by the actor's money from 
the Heralds' College — that coat-of-arms which Shakespeare prized because it 
made him "a gentleman" by birth! This it was, even more than the squalid 
appearance of the place, that saddened me. For I felt that Shakespeare himself 
must have known how well founded was the protest of the gentlemen who com- 
plained that Clarencieux had made the man who lived in that house a gentleman 
■of coat-armor.' 

VI. His Name. , 

The very name, Shakspcrc, was in that day considered the quin- 
tessence of vulgarity. My friend William D. O'Connor, the author 
of Hamkfs Note Book^ calls my attention to a recent number of 
The London Academy^ in w-hich a Mr. Lupton proves that in Eliza- 
beth's time the name Shakspere was considered vile, just as Rams- 
hottom, or Snooks, or Hogsflesh would be with us; and men who had 
it got it changed by legislation. Mr. Lupton gives one case where 
a man called Shakspere had his name altered by law to Saunders. 

VII. He Combines with Others to Oppress and Impoverish 

THE People. 

But there is one other feature of Shakspere's biography which 
throws light upon his character. 

From remote antiquity in England the lower classes possessed 
certain rights of common in tracts of land. Prof. Thorold Rogers 
says: 

The arable land of the manor was generally communal, /.<■., each of the ten- 
ants possessed a certain number of furrows in a common field, the several divis- 
ions being separated by balks of unplowed ground, on which the grass was suf- 
fered to grow. The system, which was almost universal in the thirteenth century, 
has survived in certain districts up to living memory.'- 

This able writer shows that the condition of labor steadily 
improved in England up to the reign of Henry VIII., and froin that 
period it steadily declined to recent times. He makes this remark- 
able statement in the preface to his work: 

I have attempted to show that the pauperism and the degradation of the 
English laborer were the result of a series of acts of Parliament and acts of gov- 
ernment, which were designed or adopted 'with the express piir[>ose of eompelling the 

1 Englaiiit Without <i>ul H'it/iiit, p. 526. - ll'otA- and Wages, \i. 88. 



THE REAL CHARAVIER OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 



57 



.laborer to work at the loivest rate of wages possible, and which succeeded at last in 
effecting their purpose.' 

Among these acts were those giving the Courts of Quarter 
Sessions the right to fix the wages of laborers; and, hence, as Prof. 
Rogers shows, while the inflowing gold and silver of Mexico and 
Peru were swelling the value of all forms of property in England, 
the value of labor did not rise in proportion; and the common 
people fell into that awful era of poverty, wretchedness, degrada- 
tion, crime, and Newgate-hanging by wholesale, which mark the 
reigns of Henry VIII. and his children. 

As part of the same scheme of oppression of the humble citi- 
zens by those who wielded the power of government, a system of 
inclosures of common lands by the landlords, without any com- 
pensation to the tenants, was inaugurated, and aided greatly to 
swell the general misery. 

The benevolent soul of Francis Bacon took part against this 
oppression. In his History of Henry VII. he said: 

Another statute was made of singular policy for the population apparently, 
and (if it be thoroughly considered) for the soldiery and military forces of the 
realm. Inclosures at that time began to be more frequent, whereby arable land 
(which could not be manured without people and families) was turned into pas- 
ture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen; and tenancies for years, lives and 
at will (whereupon much of the yeomanry lived) were turned into demesnes. . . . 
The ordinance was that, That all houses of husbandry that were used with twenty 
acres of ground and upward should be maintained and kept up forever, together 
with a competent proportion of land to be used and occupied with them, and in no 
wise to be severed from them. . . . This did wonderfully concern the might and 
mannerhood of the kingdom, to have farms as it were of a standard sufficient to 
maintain an able body out of penury. 

In 1597 Francis Bacon, then a member of Parliament, made a 
speech, of which we have a very meager report: 

Mr. Bacon made a motion against depopulation of towns and houses of hus- 
bandry, and for the maintenance of husbandry and tillage. And to this purpose 
he brought in two bills, as he termed it, not drawn with a polished pen, but with a 
polished heart. . . . And though it may be thought ill and very prejudicial to 
lords that have enclosed great grounds, and pulled down even whole towns, and 
converted them to sheep pastures, yet, considering the increase of the people, and 
the benefit of the commonwealth, I doubt not but every man will deem the revival 
of former moth-eaten laws in this point a praiseworthy thing. For in matters of 
policy ill is not to be thought ill, which bringeth forth good. For enclosure of 
grounds brings depopulation, which brings forth first, idleness; secondly, decay of 
tillage; thirdly, subversion of homes, and decrease of charity and charge to th? 

' ]\'o7-k amt Wages, Preface, p. 6. 



58 WILLIAM SIIAKSPEKE DID XOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

poor's maintenance; fourthly, the impoverishing the state of the realm. . . . And 
I should be sorry to see within this kingdom that piece of Ovid's verse prove true, 
Ja7n segt-s est iibi Troja fiiit; so in England, instead of a whole town full of people, 
none but green fields, but a shepherd and a dog. The eye of experience is the 
sure eye, but the eye of wisdom is the quick-sighted eye; and by experience we 
daily see, Nemo piitat il/ttd vidcri iiirpe quod sil>i sit (jucestuosum. And therefore 
almost there is no conscience made in destroying the savour of our life, bread I 
mean, for Funis sapor vita. And therefore a sharp and vigorous law had need be 
made against these viperous natures who fulfill the proverb, Si non posse quod vult, 
velle tamen quod potest.^ 

Hepworth Dixon says: 

The decay of tillage, the increase of sheep and deer are for the yeoman class, 
and for the country of which they are the thew and sinew, dark events. . . , He 
[Bacon] makes a wide and sweeping study of this question of Pasturage versus Till- 
age, of Deer versus Men, which convinces him of the cruelty and peril of depopu- 
lating hamlets for the benefit of a few great lords. This study will produce, when 
Parliament meets again, a memorable debate and an extraordinary change of law.'-* 

Bacon's bills became laws, after a fierce and bitter contest with 
the peers; they are in the statute book of England, 39 Elizabeth, i 
and 2. They saved the English yeomanry from being reduced to 
the present condition of the Irish peasantry. 

They provide that no more land shall be cleared without special license; and 
that all land turned into pasture since the Queen's accession, no less a period than 
forty years, shall be taken from the deer and sheep within eighteen months, and 
restored to the yeoman and the plow.^ 

These great, radical and sweeping measures should endear 
Bacon's memory to every Englishman, and to every lover of his 
kind, the world over. They saved England from depopulation. 
They laid the foundation for the greatness of the nation. They 
furnished the great middle class who fought and won at Waterloo. 
And what a broad, noble, far-sighted philanthropy do they evi- 
dence ! Here, indeed, "distribution did undo excess" that "each 
man " might "have enotigh." Here, indeed, was the greed of the 
few arrested for the benefit of the many. 

While broad-minded and humane men took this view of the 
policy of enclosures, let us see how William Shakspere regarded 
it. I quote from Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines: 

In the autumn of the year 1614 there was great excitement at Stratford-on-Avon 
respecting an attempted enclosure of a large portion of the neighboring eommon- 
Jield — not commons, as so many biographers have inadvertently stated. The 

' Life an<i M'orks of Francis Bacotiy Spedding, Ellis and Heath, vol. iii, p. 8i. 
' Persona/ History of Lord Bacon, p. 87. ^ Ibid., p. 105. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OF IVILLL4M SHAKSPERE. 



59 



design was resisted by the corporation under the natural impression that, if it were 
realized, both the number of agricultural employes and the value of the tithes would 
be seriously diminished. There is no doubt that this would have been the case, 
and, as might be expected, William Combe, the squire of Welcombe, who origi- 
nated the movement, encountered a determined, and, in the end, a successful 
opposition. He spared, however, no exertions to accomplish the object, and, in 
many instances, if we may believe contemporary allegations, tormented the poor 
and coaxed the rich into an acquiescence with his views.' 

Here was an opportunity for the pretended author of the Plays 
to show the stuff that was in him. Did he stand forward as — 

The village Hampden who, with dauntless breast. 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood? 

Did he pour forth an impassioned defense of popular rights, 
whose eloquence would have forever ended all question as to the 
authorship of the Plays ? It is claimed that he had written: 

Take physic, pomp; 
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel; 
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, 
And show the heavens more just.-' 



And again: 



I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharged, 
And duty in his service perishing.-^ 



This is in the vei"y spirit of Bacon's defense of the common 
people against those "viperous natures" that had "pulled down 
whole towns," or, as he expresses it in Pericles, had "swallowed up 
a whole parish, church, steeple, bells and all." 

See how touchingly the writer of the Plays makes the insubstan- 
tial spirit, Ariel, non-human in its nature, sympathetic with the 
sufferings of man; and Prospero (the image of the author) says, 
even in the midst of the remembrance of his wrongs: 

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling 

Of their afflictions, and shall not I, myself, 

One of their kind, that relish all as sharply. 

Fashioned as they, be kindlier moved than thou art? 

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick. 

Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury 

Do I take part.'' 

Was William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon, — himself one of 
the common people, "fashioned as they," — kindly " moved by their 

' Outlines Life of Shak., p. 197. ^ A Midsumtiier Nighfs Dream, v, i. 

^ Lear, iu,4. < Tetitpesi, v, i. 



6o WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

afflictions;" and did he throw his wealth and influence into the 
scale in their defense ? Not at all. 
Knight says : 

The enclosure would probably have improved his property, and especially 
have increased the value of the tithes, of the moiety of which he held a lease. 
The corporation of Stratford were opposed to the inclosure. They held that it 
would be injurious to the poorer inhabitants, %i)ho were then deeply suffering from 
the desolation of the fire. ' 

Let us resume Halliwell-Phillipps narrative of the transaction: 

It appears most probable that Shakespeare was one of the latter who were 
so influenced, and that, amongst perhaps other indueetnents, he was allured to the 
unpopular side by Combe's agent, one Replingham, guaranteeing him from pros- 
pective loss. However that may be, it is certain that the poet was in favor of the 
enelosti7'es, for, on December 23d, the corporation addressed a letter of remon- 
strance to him on the subject, and another on the same day to a Mr. Mainwaring. 
The latter, 7i'ho had I'een praetieally bribed by some land arrangements at Weleombe, 
undertook to protect the interests of Shakespeare, so there can be no doubt that 
the three parties were aeting in unison." 

Observe how tenderly the Shakspereans touch the wretched 
record of their hero. Mr. Mainwaring "was practically bribed by 
some land arrangements," but Mr. Shakspere, acting in concert 
with Mainwaring and Combe, under agreements of indemnifica- 
tion, was not bribed at all. 

And that this agreement contemplated driving the people off 
the land and pauperizing them, is plain from the terms of the 
instrument, for Replingham contracts to indemnify Shackespeare 
for any loss he may sustain in his tithes "by reason of any inclos- 
ure or decay of tillag^c there me /it and intended by the said William Rep- 
lingham.'' 

Three greedy cormorants combine to rob the people of their 

ancient rights, and cause a decay of tillage, and one of the three is 

the man who is supposed to have possessed the greatest mind and 

most benevolent heart of his age; a heart so benevolent toward the 

poor and suffering that he anticipated the broadest claims put 

forth by the communists of to-day: 

Here, take this purse, you whom the heaven's plagues 
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched 
Makes thee the happier: — Heavens, deal so still! 
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man. 
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see 
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly; 

1 Knight's .Sha/i. Biogra/>/ty, p. 528. "^ Outlines, p. 168. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OF WILLIAM SHAKSFERE. 6 J 

^i:* distribution should undo excess. 
And each ma it have enoutrh^ 

Do we not see in this attempt of Shakspere to rob the poor of 
their rights, at the very time they had been impoverished by a 
great fire, the same man described by Ratsei — the thrifty play- 
actor, that fed on all men and permitted none to feed on him; who 
made his hand a stranger to his pocket, and his heart slow to per- 
form his tongue's promise ? 

And all for what ? To add a few acres more to his estate; a few 
pounds more to his fortune, on which, as he fondly hoped, 
through the heirs of his eldest daughter, he was to found a family 
which should wear that fictitious coat-of-arms, based on those lands 
which the King never conferred, for services which were never 
rendered, and glorified by the immortal plays which he never wrote. 

Was this the spirit of the real author of the plays? No, no; 
listen to him: 

Tell her my love, more noble than the world, 
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands. ^ 

And again he says: 

Dost know this water-fly ? . . . 'tis a vice to know him. He hath much land 
and fertile; let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's 
mess. 'Tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.* 

This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his 
recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries; is this the fine of his 
fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt ?* 

And again: 

Hamlet. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins ? 

Horatio. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins, too. 

Hamlet. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurances in that. 

The real Shakespeare — Francis Bacon — said, "My mind turns 
on other wheels than profit." He regarded money as valuable only 
for the uses to which he put it, "the betterment of the state of 
man;" he had no faculty to grasp money, especially from the 
poor and oppressed; and as a consequence he died, leaving behind 
him a bankrupt estate and the greatest memory in human history. 

Is it possible that the true Shakespeare could have taken such 
pains, as the Stratford man did, to entail his real-estate upon one 

' ira;-, iv^ I. "^ Tivelfth Night, \\^ i,. ^ Hamlet, v, 2. * Hitiiitet, -v, 1. 



62 WILLIAM SHAKSPEKE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

of his children and her heirs, and forget totally to mention in his 
will that grander, that immortal estate of the mind which his 
genius had created, inconceivably more valuable than his "spa- 
cious possessions of dirt"? 

VIII. His Trf.atmknt of his Father's Memory. 

Let us pass to one other incident in the career of the Shakspere 
of Stratford. 

We have seen that he strove to have his father made a gentle- 
man. It will therefore scarcely be believed that, with an income 
equal to $25,000 per year of our money, he left that same father, 
and his mother, and his son Hamnet — his only son — without even 
the humblest monument to mark their last resting-place. 

Richard Grant White says: 

Shakespeare seems to have set up no stone to tell us where his mother or 
father lay, and the same is true as to his son Hamnet.' 

It appears that he inherited some property from his father, cer- 
tainly enough to pay for a headstone to mark the everlasting 
resting-place of the father of the richest man in Stratford — the 
father of the man who was "in judgment a Nestor, in genius a 
Socrates, in art a Maro! " 

And they would have us believe that he was the same man who 

wrote: 

I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack 
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor 
The azured hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor 
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander. 
Out-sweetened not thy breath: the robin would 
With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming 
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie 
Without a monii))ient !) bring thee all this.* 

IX. His Daughter Judith. 

But let us go a step farther, and ask ourselves, what kind of a 
family was it that inhabited New Place during the latter years of 
Shakspere's life ? 

We have seen that the poet's father, mother and relatives 
generally were grossly ignorant; that they could not even write 
their own names, or read the Lord's Prayer in their native 

' Li/e and Genius o/Shak., p. 144. ^ Cviii/>eiine, iv, 2. 



/T^ 



THE REAL CHARACTER OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 63 

tongue; and that they did not possess even a Bible in their 
households. 

But we now come face to face with a most astounding fact. 

Shakspere had but two children who lived to maturity, his 
daughters Susanna and Judith, ami Judith could not read or write ! 

Here is a copy of the mark with which the daugh- 
ter of Shakspere signed her name. It appears as that 
of an attesting witness to a conveyance in 161 1, she 1 

being then twenty-seven years of age. 

Think of it ! The daughter of William Shakspere, the daughter 
of the greatest intellect of his age, or of all ages, the profound 
scholar, the master of Latin, Greek, Italian, French, Spanish, 
Danish, the philosopher, the scientist, the politician, the statesman, 
the physician, the musician, signs her name with a curley-queue 
like a Pottawatomie Indian. And this girl was twenty-seven years 
old, and no idiot; she was subsequently married to one of the lead- 
ing citizens of the town, Thomas Quiney, vintner. She was raised 
in the same town wherein was the same free-school in which, we 
are assured, Shakspere received that magnificent education which 
is manifested in the Plays. 

Imagine William E. Gladstone, or Herbert Spencer, dwelling in 
the same house with a daughter, in the full possession of all her 
faculties, who signed her name with a pot-hook. Irhagine the 
father and daughter meeting every day and looking at each other ! 
And yet neither of these really great men is to be mentioned in 
the same breath with the immortal genius who produced the Plays. 

With what divine anathemas did the real Shakespeare scourge 
ignorance ! 

He says: 

Ignorance is the curse of God. ' 

And again: 

The common curse of mankind, folly and igtiorance, be thine in great revenue! 
Heaven bless thee from a tutor and discipline come not near thee.^ 

And again: 

There is no darkness but ignorance.^ 

He pelts it with adjectives: 

Barbarous ignorance.'' 

' 2d Henry VI., iv, 7. ' T-wel/th Night., iv, 2. 

* Troilus and Cressida, ii, 3. * King John, iv, 2. 



64 iyJLLJAAJ SJJAKSrEKl: DJD XQl' IIA'JJJ: HIE PLAYS. 

Dull, unfeeling ignorance.' 

Gross and miserable ignorance.'^ 

Thou monster, ignorance.'' 

Short-armed ignorance.^ 

Again, we read: 

I held it ever, 
Virtue and cunning [knowledge] were endowments greater 
Than nobleness and riches; careless heirs 
May the two latter darken and expend; 
But immortality attends the forjner, 
Making a man a god."" 

And he found — 

More content in course of true delight 
Than to be thirsty after tottering honor. 
Or tie my treasure up in silken bags, 
To please the fool and death.'' 

Can it be conceived that the man who wrote these things woidd 
try, by false representations, to secure a coat-of-arms for his family, 
and seek by every means in his power to grasp the shillings and 
pence of his poorer neighbors, and at the same time leave one of 
. his children in " barbarous, barren, gross and miserable ignorance " ? 
\. With an income, as we have shown, equal to $25,000 yearly of 
our money; with the country swarming with graduates of Oxford 
and Cambridge, begging for bread and ready to act as tutors; living 
in a quiet, rural neighborhood, where there were few things to 
distract attention, William Shakspere permitted his daughter to 
attain the ripe age of twenty-seven years, unable to read the 
immortal quartos which had made her father famous and wealthy. 
We will not — we cannot — believe it. 

X. Some of the Educated Women of that Age. 

But it may be said that it was the fault of the age. 

It must be remembered, however, that the writer of the Plays 
was an exceptional man. He possessed a mind of vast and endless 
activity, Avhich ranged into every department of human thought; 
he eagerl)'^ absorbed all learning. 

Such another natural scholar we find in Sir Anthony Cook, tutor 
to King Edward IV., grandfather of Francis Bacon and Robert Cecil. 

1 Richard II., i, 3. ' Loves Labor Lost, iv, 2. * Pericles, iii, 2. 

'^ 2d Henry //'., iv, 2. * Troilus and Crcssida, ii, 3. *Ibid. 




WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 

FRANCIS BACON'S MASK. 

Facsimile of ihe Frontispiece in the Folio of ibsj. 

Facing this portrait In the Folio are presented Ben Jonson's famous lines: 

This Figure, that thou here seest put O, could he but have drawn his wit 

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; As well in brasse, as he hath hit 

Wherein the Graver had a strife His face, the Print would then surpass. 

With nature, to out-doo the life: All that was ever writ in brasse. 

But since he cannot, Reader, looke 

Not on his Picture, but his Hooke. 



/ 



THE REAL CHARACTER OE WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 65 

Like Shakspere of Stratford, his family consisted of girls, and 
Tie was not by any means as wealthy as Shakspere. Did he leave 
his daughters to sign their names with hieroglyphics ? No. 

Macaulay says: 

Katherine, who became Lady Killigrew, wrote Latin hexameters and pentam- 
eters which would appear with credit in the Mustv Etonenses. Mildred, the wife 
of Lord Burleigh, was described by Roger Ascham as the best Greek scholar 
among the young women of England, Lady Jane Grey always excepted. Anne, 
the mother of Francis Bacon, was distinguished both as a linguist and a theologian. 
She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewell, and translated his Apologia from 
the Latin so correctly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single 
alteration. She also translated a series of sermons on fate and free will from the 
Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino.' 

They were not alone. There were learned and scholarly women 
in England in those days, and many of them, as there have been in 
all ages since. 

Macaulay says: 

The fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer who compared, over their embroidery, 
the styles of Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns were sounding and 
the dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel with eyes riveted to that immortal page 
which tells how meekly and bravely the first great martyr of intellectual liberty 
took the cup from his weeping jailer.'^ 



It is not surprising that William Shakspere, poacher, fugitive, 
vagabond, actor, manager, brewer, money-lender, land-grabber, 
should permit one of his two children to grow up in gross ignor- 
ance, but it is beyond the compass of the human mind to believe 
that the author of Hamlet and Lear could have done so. He indi- 
cates in one of his plays how a child should be trained. Speaking 
of King Leonatus, in Cymbeline, he says: / 

Put him to all the learnings that his time 
Could make him receiver of ; which he took 
As we do air, fast as 'twas ministered, and 
In his spring became a harvest.* 

If Judith had been the child of the author of the Plays, and had 
"something of Shakespeare in her," she would have resented and 
struggled out of her shameful condition ; her mind would have 
sought the light as the young oak forces its way upward through 
the brush-wood of the forest. She would have replied to her neg- 
lectful father as Portia did: 

• Macaulay's Essays^ Bacon, p. 246. ^ Ibid., p. 247. ' Cymbeline, i, i. 



66 WILLIAM SlIAKSFERE DID NO I' WRITE THE PLAYS. 

But the full sum of me 
Is sum of nothing, which to term in gross 
Is anunlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticed ; 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; happier than this. 
She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 
Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed. 
As from her lord, her governor, her king.' 

But if she was the natural outcome of ages of ignorance, 
developed in a coarse and rude state of society, and the daughter 
of a cold-blooded man, who had no instinct but to make money, 
we can readily understand how, in the midst of wealth, and under 
the shadow of the school-house, she grew up so grossly ignorant. 

XI. Shakspere's Family. 

There seems to have been something wrong about the whole 
breed. 

In 1613, Shakspere being yet alive, Dr. Hall, his son-in-law, 
husband of his daughter Susanna, brought suit in the ecclesiastical 
court against one John Lane, for reporting that his wife " had the 
runninge of the raynes, and had bin naught with Rafe Smith and 
John Palmer." Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

The case was heard at Worcester on July the 15th, 161 3, and appears to have 
been cojiducted sonieivhat viysteriously, the deposition of Robert Whatcot, the poet's 
intimate friend, being the only evidence recorded, and throwing no substantia/ light 
on the merits of the dispute} 

Nevertheless, the defendant was excommunicated. 

This being the case of the oldest daughter, the other, the pot- 
hook heiress, does not seem to have been above suspicion. Judith's 
marriage with Thomas Quiney was a mysterious and hurried one. 
Phillipps says: 

There appears to have been some reason for accelerating this event, for they 
were married without a license, and were summoned a few weeks afterward to the 
ecclesiastical court at Worcester to atone for the offense.^ 

Ignorance, viciousness, vulgarity and false pretenses seem to 
have taken possession of New Place. 

Not a glimpse of anything that might tell a different story 
escapes the ravages of time. 

» Merchant 0/ Venice, iii, 2. "^ Outtines Life o/S/iak., p. 166. 

3 Halliwell-Phillipps, Outtines Life o/Shak., p. 182. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OE WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 67 

Appleton Morgan says: 

It is simply impossible to turn one's researches into any channel that leads 
into the vicinity of Stratford without noticing the fact that the Shakspere family 
left in the neighborhood where it flourished one unmistakable trace, familiar in all 
cases of vulgar and illiterate families, namely, the fact that they never knew or 
cared, or made an effort to know, of what vowels or consonants their own name 
was composed, or even to prepare the skeleton of its pronunciation. They 
answered — and made their marks — indifferently to Saxpir, or Chaksper, or 
to any other of the thirty forms given by Mr. Grant White, or the fifty-five forms 
which another gentleman has been able to collect.' 

Even the very tombs of the different members of the family pre- 
sent different renderings of the name. Under the bust it is Shak- 
speare, while he signed the will as Shakspere; over the grave of 
Susanna it is Shakspere; over the other members of the family 
it is Shakespeare. 

In short, the name was notliing. They 

Answered to " Hi! " 
Or any loud cry. 

XII. The Origin of the Name. 

We have been taught to believe that the name was Shakespeare, 
and it has been suggested that this was a reminiscence of that 
*' late antecessor " who rendered such valuable services to the late 
King Henry VII.; that he shook a speare in defense of the King so 
potently that he was ever after known as Shakespeare. It is in this 
way the name is printed in all the publications put forth in Shak- 
spere's lifetime. But it is no less certain that this name is another 
imposture. There never was a ''shake" to it; and possibly never 
a "speare." The name was Shak-spearc, or speer, or spur, or pierre, 
the first syllable rhyming to i>ack and not to hake. Shakespeare was 
doubtless an invention of the man who assumed the name at a 
later date as a mask, and he wanted something that would 
" heroically sound." The fictitious speare passed to the fraud- 
ulent coat-of-arms. 

In the bond given to enable William to marry, he is called 
"William Shagspere." In the bill of complaint of 1589 of John 
Shakspere in connection with the Wilmecote property, his son is 
alluded to as " William Shackespere." The father signs his cross 
to a deed to Robert Webb, in which he is described as " John Shax- 

' The Shakespeare Myth^ p. i6o. 



68 WILLIAM SILAKSPERE DID NOT IVRITE THE PLAYS. 

pere;" and his mother makes her mark as " Marye Shaksper." 
His father is mentioned in the will of John Webbe, in 1573, 
as "John Schackspere." In 1567 he is alluded to in the town 
records as "Mr. Shakspyr," and when elected high bailiff, in 1568, 
he is referred to as "Mr. John Shakysper." The only letter 
extant addressed to Shakspere was written October 25, 1598, by 
Richard Quiney, his townsman, and it is addressed to "Mr. Wm. 
Shackespere." In 1594-5 he is referred to in the court record 
as "Shaxberd." In 1598 he is referred to in the corporation 
records of Stratford as selling them a load of stone: "Paid to 
Mr. Shaxpere for on lod of ston x d." In his will the attorney 
writes it " Schackspeare," and the man himself signed his name 
Shakspere. 

Hallam says: 

The poet and his family spelt their name Shakspere, and to this spelling th°re 
are no exceptions in his own autographs. 

The name is spelled by his townsman. Master Abraham Sturley, 
in 1599, .5'//<^//l'spere, and in 1598 he alludes to him as "Mr. William 
Shak." And when he himself petitioned the court in chancery in 
1612, in reference to his tithes, he described himself as "William 
Schackspeare." 

White says: 

In the irregular, phonographic spelling of antiquity, the name appears some- 
times as Chacksper and Shaxpui: It is possible that Shakespeare is a corruption 
of some name of a more peaceful meaning, and therefore perhaps of humbler 
derivation.' 

It has been suggested, and with a good deal of probability, 
that the original name was Jacques-Pierre, pronounced Chacks- 
pere, or Shaks-pere, 

The French Jacques (James) seems, by soine mutation, to have 
been transformed in England into "a nickname or diminutive for 
John."^ 

Thus it may be that the original progenitor of this grandilo- 
quent, martial cognomen, which " doth like himself heroically 
sound," may have been, in the first instance, a peasant without a 
family name, and known as plain Jack-Peter. 

' White, I.j/c and Genius of Shak., p. 5. 

2 See Webster's Unabridged Pietionnry, p. 722, the word Jack. 



THE REAL CHARACTER OF WILLIAM SHAKSTERE. 69 

XIII. His Humiliation, 

Despite his wealth, his position in his native town could not have 
been a very pleasant one. In 1602, and again in 1612, the very year 
in which we are told Shakspere returned to Stratford to spend the 
rest of his life, the most stringent measures were taken by the corpo- 
ration to prevent the performance of plays. The pursuit in which he 
had made his money was thus stamped by his fellow townsmen as 
something shameful and degrading. Even this dirty little village 
repudiated it. The neighboring aristocracy must have turned up 
their noses and laughed long and loud at the plebeian's son setting up 
a coat-of-arms. By profession he was, by the statutes of his country, 
a "vagabond," and had, in the past, only escaped arrest as such by 
entering himself as a servitor, or servant, to some nobleman. 

The vagabond, according to the statutes, was to " be stripped 
naked, from the middle upwards, and to be whipped until his 
body was bloody, and to be sent from parish to parish, the next 
straight way, to the place of his birth." ' 

He was buried in the chancel of the church, not as recogni- 
tion of his greatness, but because that locality was " the legal and 
customary burial-place for the owners of the tithes."'' 

XIV. His Handwriting. 

The very signature of Shakspere has provoked discussion. 
The fact that the will as originally drawn read, "witness my seal," 
and that the "seal" was erased and "hand" written in, has been 
cited to prove that the lawyer who drew the will believed that the 
testator could not read or write. In an article in The Quarterly 
Review in 1871, we read: 

If Shakspere's handwriting was at all like his signature, it was by no means easy 
to decipher. If we may speak dogmatically upon such slender proofs as we now pos- 
sess, he learnt to write after the old German text-hand then in use at the grammar 
school of Stratford. It was in this respect fifty years behindhand, as any one may see 
by comparing Shakspere's signature with that of Sir Thomas Lucy, Lord Bacon, 
or John Lilly. The -awnder is Junv ivith suck a hand he could ha7'c icrit/oi so much. 

Mr. William Henry Burr, of Washington, D. C, has written an 
interesting pamphlet, to prove that Shakspere could not read or 
write, but simply traced his name from a copy set him; and that, 

' Knight's Illitst. S/ial-s., 'I'rai,^., i, p. 442. " Outlines Li/c 0/ S/iak., p. 171. 



70 WILLIAM SIIAKSPEKE DID NOT ]VKITE THE PLAYS. 

as the copy furnished him at different times was written by differ- 
ent hands, there is a great difference in the shape of the letters 
composing his name. 

Certain it is his autographs do not look like the work of a schol- 
arly man. The following cut is a representation of all the signatures 
known, beyond question, to have been written by Shakspere: 

The first is from Malone's fac-siinilc of a mortgage deed which 
has been lost; the second is from a conveyance in the possession of 
the corporation of London; the other three are from the three 
sheets of paper constituting his will. 

Compare the foregoing scrawls with the clear and scholarly 
writing of Ben Jonson, affixed in 1604-5 to a copy of his Mask of 
Blackness, and now preserved in the British Museum: 




Or compare them with the handwriting of the famous and 
popular John Lyly, the author of Ei/phues, written about 1580: 




THE REAL CHARACTER OF WILLIAM SHAKSFERE. 



71 



Or compare them with the following signature of Francis 
Bacon: 



^^ir M^l il^u^ p^^rS^^^j^ 




Or compare them with the signature of the famous Inigo Jones, 
who assisted in getting up the scenery and contrivances for masks 
at court: 



-^ 




XV. His Death. 



Let us pass to another point. 

We saw that the first recorded fact in reference to the Stratford 
boy was a drunken bout in which he lost consciousness, and lay out 
in the fields all night. The history of his life terminates with a sim- 
ilar event. 

Halliwell-Phillipps thus gives the tradition: 

It is recorded that the party was a jovial one, and, according to a somewhat 
late but apparently reliable tradition, when the great dramatist was returning to 
New Place in the evening, he had taken more wine than was conducive to pedestrian 
accuracy. Shortly or immediately afterwards, he was seized by the lamentable 
fever which terminated fatally on Friday, April 23. The cause of the malady, then 
attributed to undue festivity, would now be readily discernible in the wretched san- 
itary conditions surrounding his residence. If truth, and not romance, is to be 
invoked, were there the woodbine and the sweet honeysuckle within reach of the 
poet's death-bed, their fragrance would have been neutralized by their vicinity to 
middens, fetid water-courses, mud-walls and piggeries.' 

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines Life of Siiak., p. 170. • 



72 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE FLAYS. 

And from such a cause, and in the midst of such surroundings, 
we are told, died the greatest man of his race; leaving behind him 
not a single tradition or memorial that points to learning, culture, 
refinement, generosity, elevation of soul or love of humanity. 

If he be in truth the author of the Plays, then indeed* is it one 
of the most inexplicable marvels in the history of mankind. As 
Emerson says, ** I cannot marry the facts to his verse." 



T 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 

Come, and take choice of all my library, 
And so beguile thy sorrow. 

Titus A iijroniius, h\ r. 

HE whole life of Shakspere is shrouded in mystery. 
Richard Grant White says: 



We do not know positively the date of Shakespeare's birth, or the house in 
which he first saw the light, or a single act of his life from the day of his baptism to 
the month of his obscure and suspicious marriage. We are equally ignorant of the 
date of that event, and of all else that befell him from its occurrence until we find 
him in London; and when he went there we are not sure, or when he finally 
returned to Stratford. . . . Hardly a word that he spoke has reached us, and not 
a familiar line from his hand, or the record of one interview at which he was 
present.' 

And, again, the same writer says: 

From early manhood to maturity he lived and labored and throve in the chief 
city of a prosperous and peaceful country, at a period of high intellectual and 
moral development. His life was passed before the public in days when the pen 
recorded scandal in the diary, and when the press, though the daily newspaper did 
not yet exist, teemed with personality. Yet of Dante, driven in haughty wretched- 
ness from city to city, and singing his immortal hate of his pursuers as he fled, we 
know more than we do of Shakespeare, the paucity of whose personal memorials 
is so extreme that he has shared with the almost mythical Homer the fortune of 
having the works which made his name immortal pronounced medleys, in the com- 
position of which he was but indirectly and partially concerned.^ 

Hallam says: 

Of William Shakespeare it may be truly said we know scarcely anything. . . . 
While I laud the labors of Mr. Collier, Mr. Hunter and other collectors of such 
crumbs, I am not sure that we should not venerate Shakespeare as much if they 
had left him undisturbed in his obscurity. To be told that he played a trick on a 
brother player in a licentious amour, or that he died of a drunken frolic, does not 
exactly inform us of the man who wrote Lear. If there was a Shakespeare of 
earth there was also one of heaven, and it is of him that we desire to know some- 
. thing.' 

This is certainly extraordinary. 
It was an age of great men. 

1 White, Li/f and Genius of Shak., p. 4. - Ibid., p. i. ' Introduction to Literature of Europe, 

73 



74 WILLIAM SHAKSPEKE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

Richard Grant White says: 

Unlike Dante, unlike Milton, unlike Goethe, unlike the great poets and trage- 
dians of Greece and Rome, Shakespeare left no trace upon the political, or even 
the social life of his era. Of his eminent countrymen, Raleigh, Sidney, Spenser, 
Bacon, Cecil, Walsingham, Coke, Camden, Hooker, Drake, Hobbes, Inigo Jones, 
Herbert of Cherbury, Laud, Pym, Hampden, Selden, Walton, Wotton and Donne 
may be properly reckoned as his contemporaries; and yet there is no proof what- 
ever that he was personally known to either of these men, or to any others of less 
note among the statesmen, scholars, soldiers and artists of his day, except the few 
of his fellow craftsmen whose acquaintance with him has been heretofore men- 
tioned.' 

It was an age of pamphlets. Priests, politicians and players all 
vented their grievances, or set forth their views, in pamphlets, but 
in none of these is there one word from or about Shakspere. 

I. Where are his Letters ? 

It was an age of correspondence. The letters which have come 
down to us from that period would fill a large library, but in no 
one of them is there any reference to Shakspere. 

The man of Stratford passed through the world without leaving 
the slightest mark upon the politics or the society of his teeming 
and active age. 

Emerson says: 

If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakespeare's time should 
be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton was born four years after Shake- 
speare, and died twenty-three years after him, and I find among his correspondents 
and acquaintances the following persons: Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir 
Philip Sidney, the Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir 
Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Bellarmine, Charles 
Cotton, John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, 
Arminius — with all of whom exists some token of his having communicated, with- 
out enumerating many others whom doubtless he (Wotton) saw^ — • Shakspeare, 
Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, Massinger, two Herberts, Marlowe, Chapman and 
the rest. Since the constellation of great men who appeared in Greece in the time 
of Pericles, there was never any such society; yet their genius failed them to find 
out the best head in the universe. Our poet's mask was impenetrable. '■* 

We read in a sonnet attributed to his pen that he highly valued 
Spenser; and we find Spenser, it is claimed, alluding to the author 
of the Plays; the dedications of the W'uits and Adonis and the Rafe 
of Liicrcce are supposed to imply close social relationship with the 
Earl of Southampton; we are told Elizabeth conversed with him 
and King James wrote him a letter; we have pictures of him sur- 

1 Life and Genius cf Shak., ji. 185. ^ Rc/>rcscntath'e Men, p. 200. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 7^ 

rounded by a circle of friends, consisting of the wisest and wittiest 
of the age; and yet there has been found no scrap of writiiig from 
him or to him; no record of any dinner or festival at which he met 
any of his associates. In tlie greatest age of English literature the 
greatest man of his species lives in London for nearly thirty years, 
and no man takes any note of his presence. 

Contrast the little we know of Shakspere with the great deal we 
know of his contemporary Ben Jonson. We are acquainte.d some- 
what with the career even of Ben's father; we know that Ben 
attended school in London, and was afterward at Cambridge; — 
there is no evidence that Shakspere ever was a day at school in his 
life. We know that Jonson enlisted and served as a young man in 
the wars in the Low Countries. Shakspere's biography, from the 
time he left Stratford, in 1585-7, until he appears in London as a 
writer of plays, is an utter blank, except the legend that he held 
horses at the door of the theater. We know all about Jonson's- 
return home; his marriage; his duel with Gabriel Spencer. We 
are certain of the date of the first representation of each of his plays; 
there is a whole volume of matter touching the quarrels between 
himself and other writers. He published his own works in 1616. 
and received a pension from James L We have letters extant 
describing the suppers he gave, his manners, weaknesses, appear- 
ance, etc. 

But with Shakspere all this is different. Where are the letters 
he must have received during the thirty years he was in London, 
if he was the man of active mind given out by the Plays ? If he had 
received but ten a year, they would make a considerable volume., 
and what a world of light they would throw upon his pursuits and 
character. 

But two letters are extant — those to which I have already 
referred : one addressed to him soliciting a loan of money; an- 
other addressed to a third party, in which he is referred to in the 
same connection; but there is not one word as to studies, or art, 
or literature, or politics, or science, or religion; and yet the mind 
that wrote the Plays embraced all these subjects, and had thought 
profoundly on all of them. He loved the art of poetry passionately: 
he speaks of " the elegance, facility and golden cadence of poetry; " '' 

' Lin'e s Labor Lost, iv, 2. 



76 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

he aspired to a " muse of fire that would ascend the highest heaven 
of invention; " he struggled for perfection. Had he no intercourse 
with the poets of his time ? Was there no mutual coming-together 
of men of kindred tastes and pursuits? 

Is it not most extraordinary that he should leave behind him 
this vast body of plays, the glory and the wonder of which fills the 
world, and not a scrap of paper except five signatures, three of 
which were affixed to his will, and the others to some legal docu- 
ments ? 

On the one side we have the Plays — vast, voluminous, immortal, 
covering and ranging through every department of human thought. 
These are the works of Shakespeare. 

On the other hand, these five signatures are the sum total of the 
life-labors of Shak-spere which have come down to us. 

In these rude, illiterate scrawls we stand face to face with the 
man of Stratford. What an abyss separates them from the majestic, 
the god-like Plays ? 

It is a curious fact that all the writings were put forth in the 
name of Shakespeare, very often printed with a hyphen, as I have 
given it above, Shakespeare ; while in every one of the five cases 
where the man's signature has come down to us, he spells his name 
Shakspere. 

In this work, wherever I allude to the mythical writer, I designate 
him as Shakespeare ; whenever I refer to the man of Stratford, I give 
him the name he gave himself — Shakspere. 

The history of mankind will be searched in vain for another 
instance where a great man uniformly spelled his' name one way on 
the title-pages of his works, and another way in the important 
legal documents which he was called upon to sign. Can such a 
fact be explained ? 

But passing from this theme we come to another question: 

II. Where are his Books? 

We have seen that the author of the Plays was a man of large 
learning; that he had read and studied Homer, Plato, Heliodorus, 
Sophocles, Euripides, Dares Phrygius, Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, 
Statins, Catullus, Seneca, Ovid, Plautus, Plutarch, Boccaccio, Berni 
and an innumerable array of French novelists and Spanish and 



THE LOST LIBRARY AA'D MANUSCRIPTS. 77 

Danish writers^ The books which have left their traces in the Plays 
would of themselves have constituted a large library. 

What became of them ? 

There were no public libraries in that day to which the student 
could resort. The man who wrote the Plays must have gathered 
around him a vast literary store, commensurate with his own intel- 
lectual activity. 

Did William Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon, possess such a 
library ? 

If he did, there is not the slightest reference to it in his will. 

The man who wrote the Plays would have loved his library; he 
would have remembered it in his last hours. He could not have 
forgotten Montaigne, Holinshed, Plutarch, Ovid, Plato, Horace, the 
French and Italian romances, to remember his"brod silver and 
gilt bole," his "sword," his *' wearing apparel," and his "second 
best bed with the furniture." 

The man of Stratford forgot Homer and Plato, but his mind 
dwelt lovingly, at the edge of the grave, on his old breeches and 
the second-hand bed-clothes. 

Compare his will with that of one who was his contemporary, 
Robert Burton, the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy. I quote a 
few items from it. 

After leaving certain sums of money to Christ Church, Oxford, 
to buy books with, and to Brasennose Library, he says: 

If I have any books the University Library hath not, let them take them. If I 
have any books our own library hath not, let them take them. I give to Mrs. Fell 
all my English Books of Husbandry one excepted. ... To Mrs. lies my Gerard's 
Herbal. To Mrs. Morris my Country Farm, translated out of French, 4, and all 
my English Physick Books to Mr. Whistler, the Recorder of O.xford. . . . To 
all my fellow students, Mrs. of Arts, a book in Folio or two apiece. . . . To 
Master Morris my Atlas Geografer and Ortelius Theatrum Moitd. . . . To Doctor 
lies, his son. Student Salauutch on Paurrhelia and Lucian's Works in 4 tomes. 
If any books be left let my executors dispose of them with all such Books 
as are written with my own hands, and half my Melancholy copy, for Crips hath 
the other half. 

This will was made in 1639, twenty-three years after Shakspere's 
death, and shows how a scholar tenderly remembers his library 
when he comes to bid farewell to the earth. 

The inventory of Shakspere's personal property has never been- 
found. Halliwell-Phillipps says: 



78 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID N07' WRITE THE PLAYS. 

If the inventory ever comes to light, it can hardly fail to be of surpassing 
interest, especially if it contains a list of the books preserved at New Place. These 
must have been ve>y limited in number, for there is no allusion to such luxuries in the 
7vill. Anything like a private library, even of the smallest dimensions, was then 
of the rarest occurrence, and that Shakespeare ever owned one, at any time of his 
life, is exceedingly improbable} 

But surely the man who could write as follows could not have 
lived without his books: 

Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; . . . his intellect 
IS not replenished; he is only an animal; only sensible in the duller parts. - 

There is no evidence that Shakspere possessed a single book. 
It was supposed for some time that the world had a copy of a work 
from his library, the Essays of Montaigne, but it is now conceded 
that the signature on the title-leaf is a forgery. The very forgery 
showed the instinctive feeling which possessed intelligent men that 
the author of ^«^w/<'/ must have owned a library, and would have lov- 
ingly inscribed his name in his favorite books. 

III. Where is the Debris of his Work-shop. 

It was an age of commonplace-books. 

Halliwell-Phillipps calls the era of Shakspere "those days of 
commonplace-books." 

Shakespeare himself presented a commonplace-book to some 

friend, and wrote this sonnet, probably on the fly-leaf: 

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, 

Thy dial how thy precious moments waste; 
The 7'acant leoTcs thy mind's imprint will bear, 

And of this book this learning mayst thou taste. 
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show 
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; 
Thou by the dial's shady stealth mayst know 

Time's thievish progress to eternity. 
Look, icliat thy memory cannot contain. 

Commit to these rvaste blanks, and thou shalt find 
. - These children nursed, delivered from thy brain 
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. 
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look. 
Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.'* 

That distinguished scholar, Prof. Thomas Davidson, expresses 
the opinion that this word offices may be identical Vv^ith the Promus 
of Bacon, some leaves of which are now in the British Museum, 

• Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines Life of Shak., p. i86. "^ Love' s Labor Lost, iv, 2. 

3 Sonnet Ixxvii. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 79 

The sonnet describes just such a commonplace-book as Bacon's 
Promiis is; and Prof. Davidson adds: 

Promus is the Latin for offices, that is, larder. Offices here has always seemed 
a strange word. Its significance appears to have been overlooked. The German 
translations omit it. 

The real author of the Plays was a laborious student; we will 
see hereafter how he wrote and re-wrote his works. This sonnet 
shows that he must have kept commonplace-books, in which he 
noted down the thoughts and facts which he feared his memory 
could not contain, to subsequently "enrich his book" with them. 
With such habits he must have accumulated during his life-time a 
vast mass of material, the debris, the chips of the work-shop, hewn 
off in shaping the stately statues of his thought. 

What became of them ? 

IV. Where are the Original Copies of the Plays? 

Let the reader write off one page of any one of the Shakespeare 

Plays, and he can then form some conception of the huge mass of 

manuscripts which must have been in the hands of the author. 

But as there is evidence that some of the Plays were re-written more 

than once, and "enlarged to as much again," there must have been, 

in the hands of the author, not only these original or imperfect 

manuscript copies, but the final ones as well. Moreover, there had 

been seventy-two quarto editions of the Plays. These, even if 

imperfect and pirated, as it is claimed, were 

His children, nursed, delivered of his brain; 

and if the Stratford man was really the father of the Plays, and 

believed that 

Not marble, 
Nor the gilded monuments of princes, 
Should outlive this powerful rhyme, 

what would be more natural than that he should take with him to 
Stratford copies of these quarto editions ? Can we conceive of a 
great writer withdrawing to his country residence, to live out the 
remainder of his life, without a single copy of the works which had 
given him wealth, fame and standing as a gentleman ? 

And if he possessed such books, commonplace-books and man- 
uscripts, why did he not, 

Dying, mention them within his will. 



8o WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

as the real author says the Roman citizen would a hair from the 
head of the dead Caesar? For all the dust of all the Caesars would 
not compare in interest for mankind with these original manu- 
scripts and note-books; and the man who wrote the Plays knew it, 
and announced it with sublime audacity: 

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 

Nor lose possession of that fain thou owest; 
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, 
When in eternal lines to time thou goest. 
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see. 
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

Appleton Morgan says: 

More than a century and a half of vigorous and exhaustive research, bounded 
only by the limits of Great Britain, have failed to unearth a single scrap of memo- 
randa or manuscript notes in William Shakespeare's handwriting, as preparation 
for any one or any portion of these plays or poems. 

But it will be said that this utter disappearance of the original 
copies, note-books, memoranda, letters, quarto editions and library 
is due to the destruction and waste of years. 

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back. 
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. 

But certain things are to be remembered. 

It must be remembered that Shakspere was the one great man 

of his race and blood. He had lifted his family from obscurity 

to fame, from poverty to wealth, from the condition of yeomanry 

to that of pretended gentry; all their claims to consideration rested 

upon him; and this greatness he had achieved for them not by 

the sword, or in trade, but by his intellectual genius. Hence, 

they represented him, in his monument, with pen in hand, in 

the act of writing; hence, they placed below the monument a 

declaration in Latin that he was, 'In judgment, a Nestor — in 

genius, a Socrates — in art, a Maro," and an English inscription 

which says that 

All that he hath writ 
Leaves living art but page to serve his wit. 

His daughter Susanna was buried with these lines upon her 

tomb: 

Witty above her sex, but that's not all. 
Wise to salvation was good Mistress Hall; 
Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this 
Wholly of him with whom she's now in bliss. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 8i 

His genius was more or less the subject of comment even while 
he lived and soon after his death. 

We are told, in the preface to the quarto edition of Troilus 
and Crcssidii, published in 1609, that Shakespeare's Plays are equal 
to the best comedy in Terence or Plautus. 

And, believe this, that when he is gone and his Comedies out of sale, you will 
scramble for them, and set up a new English Inquisition. 

In 1662, forty-six years after his death, and eight years before 
the death of his grand-daughter Elizabeth, wife of Sir John Bar- 
nard, the vicar of Stratford proceeded to note down the traditions 
about him. 

How comes it, then, that this family — thus made great by the 
genius of one man, by his literary genius; conscious of his great- 
ness; aware that the world was interested in the details of his 
character and history — should have preserved no scrap of his 
writing; no manuscript copy of any of his works; no quarto edition 
of the Plays; no copy of the great Folio of 1623; no book that had 
formed part of his library; no communication addressed to him by 
any one on any subject; no incident or anecdote that would have 
illustrated his character and genius ? They had become people of 
some note; they lived in the great house of the town. One son-in- 
law was a physician, who had preserved a written record of the 
diseases that came under his observation; his grand-daughter 
Elizabeth, in 1643, entertained Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of 
King Charles, the reigning monarch, and daughter of the great 
King Henry IV. of France. The Queen remained in Shakspere's 
house, New Place, for three weeks, on her progress to join King 
Charles at Oxford. The Plays of Shakespeare were the delight of 
King Charles' court. We are assured by Dryden that Shakespeare 
was greatly popular with "the last King's court" — that of King 
James — and that Sir John Suckling, and the greater part of the 
courtiers, rated him "our Shakespeare," far above Ben Jonson, 
" even when his (Jonson's) reputation was at the highest." 

Could it be possible that the Queen and courtiers would find 

themselves in the house of the author of Hamlet and The Merry 

Wives of Windsor, and yet ask no questions about him ? And if 

they did, what more natural than for his grand-daughter to produce 

the relics she possessed of the great man — the letter of compliment 



82 WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

which King James, the King's father, had written him, as tradition 

affirms. Kings' letters were not found on every bush in Stratford. 

And such memorials, once presented to the inspection of the curious, 

would never again be forgotten. 

Would not a sweet and gentle and cultured nature have left 

behind him, in the bosom of his family, a multitude of pleasant 

anecdotes, redolent of the wit and humor that sparkle in the Plays? 

And, once uttered, the world would never permit them to die. 

No accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world has ever lost. 

We are told, by Oldys, that when his brother, in his latter years, 
visited London, he was beset with questions by the actors touching 
his illustrious relative, held by them in the highest veneration; but 
he could tell them nothing. Would not similar questions be pro- 
pounded to his family? His nephew, the son of his sister, was an 
actor in London for years, but he, too, seems to have had nothing 
to tell. We know that Leonard Digges, seven years after his death, 
refers to the "Stratford monument." Interest in him was active. 

Dr. Hall's diary of the patients he visited, and the diary of law- 
yer Green, Shakspere's cousin, concerning his petty law business, 
are both extant, and are pored over by rapturous students; but 
where are Shakspere's diary and note-books? 

Neither is there any reason why his personal effects should dis- 
appear through carelessness. Dr. Hall was a man of education. 
He must have known the value of Shakspere's papers. His own 
and his father-in-law's personal property continued in the hands of 
Shakspere's heirs down to tJie beginniiio; of the present century, having 
passed by will from Lady Barnard in 1670 to the heirs of Joan 
Hart, Shakspere's sister. This was long after the great Garrick 
Jubilee had been held at Stratford, and long after the world had 
grown intensely curious about everything that concerned its most 
famous man. Surely the memorials of one who was believed by his 
heirs to be the rival of Socrates in genius and of Maro in art would 
not be permitted to be destroyed by a family of even ordinary intel- 
ligence. See how the papers of Bacon — of Bacon who left no chil- 
dren, and probably an unfaithful wife — have come down to us: 
the MSS. of his books; great piles of letters, written, most of them, 
not when he was Lord Chancellor, but when he was plain Master 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 83 

Prancis Bacon. Even his commonplace-books have found their 
way into the British Museum, and the very scraps of paper upon 
which his amanuensis tried his pen. Remember how Spedding 
found the original packages of the private letters of Lord Bur- 
leigh, just as they were tied up by the great Lord Treasurer's own 
hand, never opened or disturbed for nigh three hundred j'^ears ! 

In the British Museum they have the original manuscript copies 
of religious plays written in the reign of Henry VI., two hundred 
years before the time of Shakspere; but that marvelous collection 
has not a line of any of the plays written by the author of Lear and 
Hamlet. 

V. The Money Value of the Plays. 

Nothing is clearer than that Shakspere was a money-getting 
man. He achieved a very large fortune in a pursuit in whicli most 
men died paupers. He had a keen eye to profit. He was read)^ to 
sue his neighbor for a few shillings loaned. I have shown that he 
must have carried on the business of brewing in New Place. He 
entered into a conspiracy to wrest the right of common from the 
poor people of the town, for his own profit. 

Now, the Plays represented certain values; not alone their 
value on the stage, but the profits which came from their publica- 
tion. They were popular. 

Appleton Morgan says: 

Although constantly pirated during his lifetime, it is impossible to discover 
that anybody, or any legal representative of anybody, named Shakespeare, ever set 
up any claim to proprietorship in any of these works — works which beyond any 
literary production of that age were (as their repeatedly being subjects of piracy 
and of registration on the Stationers' books proves them to have been) of the largest 
market value. 

Why should the man who sued his neighbors for petty sums 
like two shillings pass by, in his will, these sources of emolument? 

But it may be said he had already sold the plays and poems to 
others. This answer might suffice as to those already printed, but 
there were seventeen plays that never saw the light until they 
appeared in the Folio edition of 1623, published seven years after 
his death. He must have owned these. Why did he make no pro- 
vision in his will for their publication — if not for glory, for gain? It 
may be said that John Hei/iinge and Henry CiindcU, who appear to 
have put forth the Folio of 1623, are mentioned in his will, and that 



84 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

they acted therein as his literary executors. But they are not 
named as executors. His sole executors are Dr. John Hall, his son- 
in-law, and Susanna, his daughter, with Thomas Russell, Esq., and 
Francis Collins, gent., as overseers. None of these parties appear 
to have had any connection with the great Folio. It was a large 
and costly work, and, even though eventually profitable, must have 
required the advance of a large sum to print it. Where did this 
money come from ? Is it probable that a couple of poor actors, 
like Heminge and Condell, would have undertaken such an outlay 
and risk while the children of Shakspere were alive and exceed- 
ingly wealthy ? I do not suppose that a work of the magnitude of 
the Folio of 1623 could have been printed for a less sum than the 
equivalent of $5,000 of our money. But at the back of the Folio 
we find this entry: 

Printed at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I. Smithweeke and W- 
Aspley, 1623. 

On the title-page we read: 

Printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623. 

So that it appears that three men, W. Jaggard, I. Smithweeke 
and W. Aspley, paid the expenses of the publication, while only one 
man, Ed. Blount, was concerned in printing and expense both. 

So that it appears that neither Heminge and Condell, nor 
Dr. John Hall, nor Shakspere's daughter Susanna, nor Thomas 
Russell, nor Francis Collins, nor anybody else who represented 
Shakspere's blood or estate, had anything to do with the expense 
of publishing the complete edition of Shakespeare's Plays, including' 
seventeen that had never before been printed. 

VI. A Mysterious Matter. 
But there is still another curious feature of this mysterious 
business. 

I quote again from Appleton Morgan: 

It is not remarkable, perhaps, that we find no copyright entries on the Station- 
ers' books in the name of Jonson, Marlowe, or other of the contemporary poets 
and dramatists, for these were continually in straitened circumstances. But, 
William Shakespeare being an exceedingly wealthy and independent gentleman 
(if, besides, one of the largest owners of literary property of his time), it is remark- 
able that the only legal method of securing literary matter, and putting it in shape 
to alienate, was never taken by him, or in his name. The silence of his will as to 



\ 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 



^. 



any literary property whatever is explained by the commentators by supposing 
that Shakespeare sold all his plays to the Globe or other theaters on retiring, and 
that the Globe Theater was destroyed by fire. If so, let it be shown from the only 
place where the legal transfer could have been made — the books of the Stationers' 
Company, which were not destroyed by fire, but are still extant. 

Other commentators — equally oblivious of such trifling obstacles as the laws 
-of England — urge that, being unmentioned in the will, the Plays went by course of 
probate to Dr. Hall, the executor. 

But even more, in that case, certain entries and transfers at Stationers' Hall -would 
have been necessary. Moreover, the copyright, being not by statute, was perpetual, 
and could not have lapsed. In the preface to their first folio Heminge and Con- 
dell announced that all other copies of .Shakespeare's plays are " stolen and surrep- 
titious." But on consulting the Stationers' books it appears that the quarto edi- 
tions were mostly regularly copyrighted according to law, whereas the first folio 
7vas not. Nor were the plays already copyrighted ever transferred to Heminge and 
Condell or to their publishers. 

What legal rights in England ever centered in this great first folio, except as to 
the plays which appeared therein for the first time (which Blount and Jaggard did 
•copyright), must always remain a mystery. If " stolen and surreptitious copies " ex- 
isted, therefore, they were the folio, not the quarto copies. 

And again, in another publication, Mr. Morgan says: 

Heminge and Condell asserted, in 1623, that all the editions of the plays called 
Shakespeare, except their own, were "stolen and surreptitious copies." If the laws 
of England in those days are of the slightest consequence in this investigation, it 
must appear that it was actually these very men, Heminge and Condell, and not 
the other publishers, who were utterers of "stolen and surreptitious copies." For, 
whereas all other printers of Shakespeare's plays observed the laws and entered 
them for copyright, Heminge and Condell appear never to have heard of any legal 
obligations of the sort. Unless they stole them, it certainly passes man's under- 
standing to conceive how they got hold of them. For, whatever property could be 
legally alienated in those days without a record, literary property certainly could 
not be so alienated. The record of alienation could have been made in but one place, 
and it zaas never made there. 

It may be said that Heminge and Condell, being merely play- 
actors, were unfamiliar with the copyright system and law, and, 
hence, failed to properly enter the work. But Heminge and Con- 
dell, it appears by the first Folio itself, were not the men who put 
their money into the venture, but Messrs. " W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, 
I. Smithweeke and W. Aspley." Why did they not secure a title to 
the work in which they were venturing $5,000 ? They were busi- 
ness men, not actors. 

As the Folio of 1623 declares that the previous quarto editions 
were "stolen and surreptitious copies" of the Plays, "maimed and 
deformed by the frauds and stealths of injuriotis impostors that 
■exposed them," and that they now present them "cured and perfect 
.of their limbs, and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he con- 



so WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

ceived them," etc., it follows that in 1623 Heminge and Condell 

must have had the original manuscripts in the handwriting of "the 

poet." And they assert this: 

And what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce 
received a blot in his papers. 

Now, as Heminge and Condell possessed Shakspere's original 
copies in 1623, they could not have been burned in the Globe 
Theater in 1613. 

A very large box would be required to contain them. What 
became of these fairly written, unblotted manuscripts ? Did his 
" pious fellowes," who so loved the memory of their associate that 
they compiled and published in huge and costly folio his com- 
pleted works, care nothing for these memorials, in the very hand- 
writing of him whom Ben Jonson pronounced, in the same volume 

and edition, the 

Soul of the age, 
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage; 

who " was not for an age, but for all time," and in comparison with 
whom " all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome " had produced 
was as nothing ? 

Those manuscripts have never been found, never been heard of; 
no tradition refers to them; no scrap, rag, remnant or fragment of 
them survives. 

Why did not the men who so eagerly questioned his brother, 
and who, we are told, so carefully preserved the Chandos portrait, 
secure some part of these invaluable documents, which would to-day 
be worth many times their weight in gold ? 

VII. Another Mystery. 

But another mystery attaches to these manuscripts. 

The first appearance of Troilus and Crcssida was in quarto form 
in 1609, and the book contains a very curious preface, in which we 
are told that the play had never been played, " never clapper-clawed 
with the palms of the vulgar," " never sullied with the smoky breath 
of the multitude," and we find also this remarkable statement: 

And believe this, that when he is gone and his comedies out of sale, you will 
scramble for them and set up a new English Inquisition. Take this for a warning 
and at the peril of your pleasures' loss and judgments refuse not, nor like this the 
less for not being sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude; but thank for- 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 87 

tune for the 'scape it hath made among you, since by the grand possessors' wills I 
believe yon should have prayed for them rather than been prayed. 

Here two remarkable facts present themselves: 

1. That Shakspere, who was supposed to have written his 
plays for the stage, for the profit to be drawn from their represent- 
ation to the swarming multitudes, writes a play which never is 
acted, but printed, so that any other company of players may pre- 
sent it. And this play is one of the profoundest productions of his 
great genius, full of utterances upon statecraft that are a million 
miles above the heads of the rag-tag-and-bobtail who " thunder at 
the play-house and fight for bitten apples." ' 

2. That the original copies of this play and his other come- 
dies — some or all of them — have passed out of his hands, and are 
now possessed by some grand persons not named. For, note the 
language: The writer of the preface speaks of Shakespeare's "com- 
edies" in the plural; then of the particular comedy of Troiliis and 
Cressida ; then of the " 'scape // hath made amongst you," that is, 
its escape out of the "grand possessors'" hands, who were unwill- 
ing to have it "'scape." In other words, we are told that these 
"grand possessors' wills " were opposed to letting them — the com- 
edies — be published. 

Charles Knight says: 

It is difficult to understand this clearly, but we learn that the copy had an 
escape from some poiveiful possessors. It appears to us that these /<7jj<'Jjorj were 
powerful enough to prevent a single copy of any one of the plays which Shakspere 
produced in his "noon of fame," with the exception of the Troiltis and Cressida 
and Ztvz;-, being printed till after his death; and that between his death, in 1616, 
and the publication of the Folio, in 1623, they continued the exercise of their potver, 
so as to allow only one edition of one play which had not been printed in his life- 
time {Othello) to appear. The clear deduction from this statement of facts is, that 
the original publication of the fourteen plays published in Shakspere's lifetime 
was, with the exceptions we have pointed out, authorized by some power having the 
right to prevent the publication ; that, after 1603, till the publication of the Folio, 
that right was not infringed or contested, except in three instances. - 

Knight thinks that these "grand possessors" were Shakspere's 
fellow actors, to whom he had assigned the Plays; but this diffi- 
culty presents itself: Would the man who wrote the preface to the 
Troilus and Cressida of 1609, and who evidently looked with con- 
tempt upon the flayers and the play-house, and who boasts that 

• Henry VIII., v, 3. ^$kak.. History, vol. i, p. 314. 



88 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

the play in question had never been "clapper-clawed with the 
palms of the vulgar," or "sullied with the smoky breath of the 
multitude" — would he speak of the actors who made their humble 
living before this vulgar multitude, the "vassal actors," the "legal 
vagabonds," as "grand possessors"? Do not the words imply 
some persons of higher social standing? 

And then comes this further difficulty: If the actors owned 
Troihis and Cressida, why would they not have played it, and gotten 
all the pennies and shillings out of it possible ? Or why, if written 
by an actor for actors, should it have been written so transcend- 
ently above the heads of the multitude that it could not be acted ? 
And why, if it was worth anything as a play, would the actors 
have allowed it to " 'scape " into the hands of a publisher who sends 
it forth with a sneer at the audiences who frequent their places of 
amusement. And why, if they owned all the Plays, does not their 
ownership appear somewhere on the books of copyright? And 
why, if they owned them, would they destroy their own monopoly 
by publishing them in folio in 1623, thus throwing open the doors 
to all the players of the world to act them ? And why would they 
not even copyright the book when they did so publish it? And 
why, if they did so publish it, does it appear, by the book itself, 
that they were not at the charge of publishing it, but that it was 
sent forth at the cost of four men, not actors, therein named ? 

Thus, in whatever direction we penettate into this subject, inex- 
plicable mysteries meet us face to face. 

VIII. Pregnant Questions. 

Why should the wealthy Shakspere permit the Plays, written 
while he was wealthy, to pass into the hands of certain "grand 
possessors"? And if these men were not actors, but bought the 
Plays of Shakspere, why should they make no attempt, during 
twenty years, to get their money back by publishing them ? And 
could they have procured them of the money-making Shakspere, if 
he wrote them, without paying for them ? And what business 
would "grand" men, not actors, not publishers, not speculators for 
profit, have with the Plays anyway ? And why should they stand 
guard over them and keep them from the public for twenty years, 
and then put them all out at once, and not copyright them, thus 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 89 

making them a present to the public ? And when they did publish 
them, why should they place the papers in the hands of two play- 
actors, Heminge and Condell, who pretend that they are putting 
them forth out of love for the memory of that good fellow, Will 
Shakspere? Were not Heminge and Condell a mere mask and 
cover for the "grand possessors" of the unblotted manuscripts? 

And if the man who sued Philip Rogers for ^i 19^^. \od. for 
malt sold, and for two shillings money loaned, had any ownership 
in any of these plays, can we believe he would not have enforced it 
to the uttermost farthing? Would not he and his (for they were 
all litigious) have chased the stray shillings that came from their 
publication, through court after court, and thus placed the question 
of authorship forever beyond question ? 

We are forced to conclude: 

1. Shakspere did not own the Plays and never had owned 
them. 

2. They were in the hands of and owned by some "grand" 
person or persons. 

3. This " grand " person or persons cared nothing for the 
interests of the players and made them public property; therefore, 
Heminge and Condell did not represent the players. 

4. This " grand " person or persons cared nothing for the 
money to be derived from their sale, and took out no copyright, 
but presented them freely to the world; and this was not in the 
interest of Shakspere's heirs, if he had any claim to them. 

5. And this "grand" person or persons cared nothing for 
the money to be made out of them, or he or they would, in 
the period of twenty years, between 1603 and 1623, have printed 
and reprinted them in quarto form, and made a profit out of 
them. 

But there is another striking fact in connection with the ques- 
tion of the manuscripts. 

IX. Another Mystery. 

The whole publication of the Folio of 162 j is based on a fraudulent 
statement. 

Heminge and Condell, in their preface, addressed " to the great 
variety of readers," say: 



go WILLIAM SHAKiiFERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthy to have been wished that the 
author himself had lived to have set forth, and overseen his own writings. 
But since it hath bin ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that 
right, we pray you do not envy his friends the office of their care and paine. 
to have collected and publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them as where 
(before) you were abus'd with diverse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed 
and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that exposed 
them, even those are now offered to your view cur'd and perfect of their 
limbs, and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them. Who, 
as he was a happie imitator of nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. 
His mind and his hand went together. And what he thought he uttered 
with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his 
papers. 

And on the title-page of the Folio we read: ''Mr. William Shake- 
speare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. Published according 
to the true originall copies." We have also a list of "the principal 
actors in all these plays," prefaced by these words: 

The works of William Shakespeare, containing all his Comedies, Histories and. 
Tragedies: Tritely set forth ciceording to their Jirst originall. 

Here we find four things asserted: 

1. That the Folio was printed from the original copies. 

2. That Heminge and Condell had "collected" these copies 
and published them in the Folio. 

3. That the quarto editions were " stolne and surreptitious 
copies, maimed and deformed." 

4. That what Shakespeare wrote was poured from him, as if 
by inspiration, so that he made no corrections, and " never blotted 
a line," as Ben Jonson said. 

These statements are met by the following facts: 
I. Some of the finest thoughts and expressions, distinctively 
Shakespearean, and preeminently so, are found in the quarto edi- 
tions, and not in tJic Folio. 

For instance, in the play of Hamicf, nearly all of scene iv, act 4, 
is found in the quarto and not in the Folio. In the quarto copy 
we find the following passages: 

What is a man, 
If his chief good and market of his time 
Be but to sleep and feed ? A beast, no more. 
Sure he that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and god-like reason 
To fust in us unused. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AXD M A. VU SCRIPTS. 91 

And again: 

Rightly to be great 
Is, not to stir without great argument. 
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw. 
When honor's at the stake. 

No one can doubt that these passages came from the mind 
we are accustomed to call Shakespeare. Hundreds of other 
admirable sentences can be quoted which appear in the quartos, 
but not in the Folio. It follows, then, that Heminge and Condell 
did not have "the true original copies," or they would have con- 
tained these passages. It follows, also, that there must have been 
some reason why portions of the quarto text were omitted from the 
Folio. It follows, also, that, in some respects, the *' stolne and 
surreptitious " copies of the quarto are more correct than the Folio, 
and that but for the quartos we would have lost some of the finest 
gems of thought and expression which go by the name of 
Shakespeare. 

II. The statement that Shakespeare worked without art, that 
he improvised his great productions, that there was scarce "a blot 
in his papers," in the sense that he made no corrections, is not 
only incompatible with what we know of all great works of 
art, but is contradicted on the next page but one of the Folio., 
by Ben Jonson, in his introductory verses. 

He says: 

Yet must I not give Nature all. Thy Art, 

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjo\' a part. 

For though the Poet's matter Nature be. 

His Art doth give the fashion. And that he 

Who casts to write a living line must sweat 

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat 

Upon the Muse's anvile, turn the same 

(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame, 

Or for the laurel he may gain a scorne; 

For a good Poet's made, as well as borne. 

And suck vert thou. Look how the father's face 

Lives in his issue; even so the race 

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 

In his well-torned and true-filed lines. 

Here, then, we have the two play-actors, and friends of Shake- 
speare, Heminge and Condell, squarely contradicted by another 
friend and play-actor, Ben Jonson. One asserts that Shakespeare 
wrote without art; the other, that he sweat over his "true- 



9-' 



WILLIAM SHAL^'SPLRE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



filed lines" and turned them time and again on the "Muse's 
anvile." 

Several of the plays exist in two forms: — first, a brief form, 
suitable for acting; secondly, an enlarged form, double the size of 
the former. This is true of Romeo and Juliet, He/uy F., The Merry 
Wives of Windsor and Hamlet. 

For instance, the first edition of Henry V. contains i,8oo lines; 
the enlarged edition has 3,500 lines. Knight says: 

In this elaboration the old materials are very carefully used up; but they 
are so thoroughly refitted and dovetailed with what is new, that the operation 
can only be compared to the work of a skillful architect, who, having an 
ancient mansion to enlarge and beautify, with a strict regard to its original 
character, preserves every feature of the structure, under other combinations, 
with such marvelous skill, that no unity of principle is violated, and the whole 
has the effect of a restoration in which the new and the old are undistinguish- 
able.' 

Knight gives a specimen of this work, taken from the quarto 
Henry V. of 1608 and the Folio of 1623. We print in the second 
column, in italics, those parts of the text derived from the quarto, 
and which reappear in the Folio: 



Quarto 1608. 
King. Sure we thank you; and, good 

my lord, proceed 
Why the law Salique, which they have 

in France, 
Or should or should not stop us in our 

claim: 
And God forbid, my wise and learned 

lord, 
That you should fashion, frame or wrest 

the same. 
For God doth know how many now in 

health 
Shall drop their blood, in approbation 
Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 
Therefore, take heed how you impawn 

our person; 
How you awake the sleeping sword of 

war: 
We charge you in the name of God take 

heed. 
After this conjuration speak, my lord; 
And we will judge, note and believe in 

heart 



King. 



Folio 1623. 

Sure, we thank you^ 
My learned lord, I pray you to proceed 
And justly and religiously unfold 
Why Ihe law Salique, that they have in 

France, 
Or should or should not bar us in our 

claim. 
And God forbid, my dear and faithful 

lord, 
That you should fashion, tarest or bow 

your reading. 
Or nicely charge your understanding 

soul 
With opening titles miscreate, whose 

right 
Suits not in native colors with the truth 
L'or God doth know how many now in 

health 
Shall drop their blood, in approbation 
Of 70 hat your reverence shall incite its to : 
Therefore, take heed hoiv you impawn our 

person ; 
How vou atvake the sleeping sword of war; 



1 Charles Knight, /'/(/. S/ia/c, Histories, vol, i, p. -^lo. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MAX U SCRIPTS. 93 

That what you speak is washed as pure Wc charily yoii in lliy name of God take 
As sin in baptism. heed. 

For never two such kingdoms did con- 
tend 

Without much fall of blood, whose guilt- 
less drops 

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, 

'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge 
unto the swords 

That make such waste in brief mortality. 

Under this eonjut-ation speak, >nv lord ; 

And we will hear, note and believe in 
heart, 

That what yon speak is, in your con- 
science, washed 

As pure as sin with baptism. 

Now Heminge and Condell claim, in the Folio, that the play of 
Henry V. was printed from the "true original " copy, and that it 
came from the mind of Shakspere without a blot; while here is 
proof conclusive that it was not printed from the first original 
copy; and that it did not come, heaven-born, from the soul of the 
creator; but that the writer, whoever he might be, was certainly 
a man of vast industry and immense adroitness, nimbleness and 
subtlety of mind. 

False in one thing, false in all. Heminge and Condell did not 
have the author's original manuscripts, with all the interlineations- 
and corrections, before them to print from, but a fair copy from 
some other pen. They do not seem to have known that there was 
that 1608 edition of the play. In fact, they do not even seem to know 
how to spell their own names. At the end of the introduction,, 
from which I have quoted, they sign themselves, " John Heminge "' 
and " Henrie Condell," while in the list of actors, published by 
themselves, they appear as "John Hemmings " and " Henry Con- 
dell;" and Shakspere calls them, in his will, "John Hemynge" and 
" Henry Cundell." 

If the play-actor editors thus falsified the truth, or were them- 
selves the victims of an imposition, what confidence is to be placed 
in any other statement they make ? What assurance have we that 
they had collected the original manuscript copies; that they ever 
saw them; in short, that they were the work of Shakspere or in his 
handwriting? What assurance have we diat the whole introduction 
and dedication to which their names are appended were not written 



94 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WKIT-E THE PLAYS. 

by some one else, and that they were but a mask for those "grand 
possessors" who, seven years before Shakspere's death, owned the 
play of Troilus ami Cressida ? 

In fact, a skeptical mind can see, even in the verses which face 
the portrait of Shakspere in the Folio of 1623, the undercurrent of 
a double meaning. They commence: 

The figure that thou here seest put, 
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut. 

Is the word gentle here, a covert allusion to Shakspere's 
ridiculous and fraudulent pretensions to "gentle" blood, and to 
that bogus coat-of-arms which we are told he had engraved in 
stone over the door of New Place in Stratford ? 

Wherein the graver had a strife ' 
With Nature to outdoo the life. 

No one can look at that picture and suppose that B. I. (Ben 
Jonson) was serious in this compliment to the artist. 
Appleton Morgan says: 

In this picture the head of the subject is represented as rising out of an 
horizontal plane of collar appalling to behold. The hair is straight, combed down 
the sides of the face and bunched over the ears; the forehead is disproportionately 
high; the top of the head bald; the face has the wooden expression familiar in the 
Scotchmen and Indians used as signs for tobacconists' shops, accompanied by an 
idiotic stare that would be but a sorry advertisement for the humblest establish- 
ment in that trade. 

If this picture " out-does the life," what sort of a creature must 
the original have been? 

O, could he but have drawn his wit 
As well in brass as he hath hit 
His face, the print would then surpass 
All that was ever writ in brass. 

This thought of "drawing his wit" is singularly enough taken 
from an inscription around another portrait — not that of Shak- 
spere, but of Francis Bacon. On the margin of a miniature 
of Bacon, painted by Hilliard in 1578, when he was in his 
eighteenth year, are found these words, "the natural ejaculation, 
probably," says Spedding, "of the artist's own emotion": Si 
tabula daretur dig?ia, animum inallem — if one could but paint his 
mind!* 

> The Shak. Myth, p. 95. "^Life and Works 0/ Bacon, Spedding, Ellis, etc., vol. i, p. 7. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 



95 



Let us read again those lines: 



O, could he but have drawn his wit 
As well in brass as he hath hit 
His face, the print would then surpass 
All that was ever writ — /;/ brass ! 

That is to say, his wit drawn /// brass would surpass, in brass, all 
that was ever written. Is not this another way of intimating that 
only a brazen-faced man, like Shakspere, would have had the impu- 
dence to claim the authorship of plays which were not written by 
him ? 

And that this is not a forced construction we can see by turning 
to the Plays, where we will find the words brass and brazen used in 
the same sense as equivalents for impudence. 

Can any face of bi-ass hold longer out ? ' 
Well said, bi-aze>2-lace.'^ 
A ^ras^'M-faced valet.* 

It seems to me there is even a double meaning to some of the 
introductory verses of the Folio of 1623, signed Ben Jonson. The 
verses are inscribed — 

To the memory of my beloved — the Author — Mr. William Shakespeare — 
and — li'/iaf he hath 'rft us. 

What does this mean: "what he hath left us"? Does it mean 
his works? How could Ben Jonson inscribe verses to the memory 
of works — plays? We speak of the memory of persons, not of 
productions; of that which has passed away and perished, not of 
that which is but beginning to live; not of the 

Soul of the age ! 
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage ! 

In the same volume, on the next page, we are told, 

For though his line of life went soon about, 
The life yet of his /ines 7viU never out. 

Could Ben Jonson inscribe his verses to the memory of works 
which, he assures us in the same breath, were not "for an age, but 
for all time " ? Can you erect a memorial monument over immortal 
life ? 

What did William Shakspere leave behind him that held any 
:onnection with the Plays ? Was it the real author — Francis Bacon ? 

' Love's Labor Lost, v, 2. "^ Merry Wives 0/ Windsor, iv, 2. ' Lear, ii, 2. 



96 



WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLA YS^ 



And this thought seems to pervade the verses. Jonson says: 

Thini art alive still — while thy book doth live. 

And again: 

Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were 

To see thee in our waters yet appear, 

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, 

That so did take Eliza and our James. 

That is to say, Ben Jonson expresses to the dead Shakspere 

the hope that he would reappear and make some more dramatic 

"flights" — that is, write some more plays. Such a wish would be 

absurd, if applied to the dead man, but would be very significant, if 

the writer knew that the real author was still alive and capable of 

new flights. And the closing words of the verses sound like an 

adjuration to Bacon to resume his pen: 

Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage 

Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage. 

Which, since thy flight from thence, hath mourned like night. 

And despaires day, but for thy volumes' light. 

The play-houses had the manuscript copies of the Plays, and 
had been regularly acting them; it needed not, therefore, the pub- 
lication of the Folio in 1623 to enable the poet to shine forth. 

If the "drooping stage" "mourned like night," it was not for 

the Plays which appear in the Folio, for it possessed them; it had 

been acting them for twenty years; but it was because the supply 

of new plays had given out. Hugh Holland says on the next page: 

Dryd is that vein, dry'd is the Thespian spring. 

How comes it, then, that Ben Jonson expresses the hope that 

the author would reappear, and write new plays, and cheer the 

drooping stage, and shine forth again, if he referred to the man 

whose mouldering relics had been lying in the Stratford church for 

seven years? 

X. Ben Jonson's Testimony. 

It must not be forgotten that Ben Jonson was in the employ- 
ment of Francis Bacon; he was one of his "good pens ;" he helped 
him to translate his philosophical works into Latin. If there was a 
secret in connection with the authorship of the Plays, Ben Jonson, 
as Bacon's friend, as play-actor and play-writer, doubtless knew it. 
And it is very significant that at different periods, far apart, he 
employed precisely the same words in describing the genius of 




3171: im(or\. 




THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. 



97 



William Shakspere and the genius of Francis Bacon. In these 
verses, from which I have been quoting, he says, speaking ostensi- 
bly of Shakspere: 

Or when thy socks were on. 
Leave thee alone, for the comparison 
• Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome 

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. 

Jonson died in 1637. His memoranda, entitled Ben Jonsotis 
Discoveries, were printed in 1640. One of these refers to the emi- 
nent men of his own and the preceding era. After speaking of Sir 
Thomas More, the Earl of Surrey, Challoner, the elder Wyatt, Sir 
Nicholas Bacon, Sir Philip Sydney, the Earl of Essex and Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, he says: 

Lord Egerton, a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked; but 
his learned and able but unfortunate successor (Sir Francis Bacon) is he that hath 
filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or 
preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. 

What a significant statement is this ! 

Francis Bacon had "filled up all numbers." That is to say, he 
had compassed all forms of poetical composition. Webster defines 
" numbers " thus: 

That which is regulated by count; poetic measure, as divisions of time or 
number of syllables; hence, poetry, verse — chiefly used in the plural. 
I lisped in mimbers, for the numbers came. — Pope. 
Yet should the muses bid my numbers roll. — Pope. 

In Love's Labor Lost, Longaville says, speaking of some love 
verses he had written: 

I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move; 

O sweet Maria, empress of my love, 

These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.^ 

But when Ben Jonson, who had helped translate some of 
Bacon's prose works, comes to sum up the elements of his patron's 
greatness, he passes by his claims as a philosopher, a scholar, a 
lawyer, an orator and a statesman; and the one thing that stands 
out vividly before his mind's eye, that looms up above all other 
considerations, is that Francis Bacon is a. poet — a. great poet — a 
poet who has written in all measures, " has filled up all numbers " 
— the sonnet, the madrigal, rhyming verse, blank verse. And what 
had he written ? Was it the translation of a few psalms in his old 

' Act iv, scene 3. 



g8 WILLIAM SIIAKSrERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

age, the only specimens of his poetry that have come down to us, 
in his acknowledged works? No; it was something great, some- 
thing overwhelming; something that is to be "compared or pre- 
ferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome." 

And what was it that "insolent Greece and haughty Rome" 
had accomplished to which these "numbers" of Bacon could 
be preferred ? We turn to Jonson's verses in the Shakespeare 
Folio and we read: 

And though thou hadst small Latine and less Greek, 

From thence to honor thee I would not seeke 

For names, but call forth thundering .(Eschilus, 

Euripides and Sophocles to us, 

Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead. 

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread, 

And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on. 

Leave thee alone, for the comparison 

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome 

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. 

The "numbers" of Bacon are to be compared or preferred either 
to insolent Greece or haughty Rome — that is to say, to the best 
poetical compositions of those nations. And when Ben Jonson 
uses this expression we learn, from the verses in the Folio, what 
kind of Greek and Roman literary work he had in his mind; it was 
not the writings of Homer or Virgil, but of yFschylus, Euripides, 
Sophocles, etc. — that is to say, the dramatic writers. Is it not extraor- 
dinary that Jonson should not only assert that Bacon had pro- 
duced poetical compositions that would challenge comparison with 
the best works of Greece and Rome, but that he should use the 
same adjectives, and in the same order, that he had used in the Folio 
verses, viz.: insolent Greece and haughty Rome? It was not haughty 
Greece and insolent Rome, or powerful Rome and able Greece, 
or any other concatenation of words; but he employs precisely 
the same phrases in precisely the same order. How comes it 
that when his mind was dwelling on the great poetical and 
secret works of Bacon — for they must have been secret — he 
reverted to the very expressions he had used years before in 
reference to the Shakespeare Plays ? 

And it is upon Ben Jonson's testimony that the claims of Will- 
iam Shakspere, of Stratford, to the authorship of the Plays, princi- 
pally rest. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIFTS. 99 

If the Plays are not Shakspere's then the whole make-up of the 
Folio of 1623 is a fraud, and the dedication and the introduction 
are probably both from the pen of Bacon. 

Mr. J. T. Cobb calls attention to a striking parallelism between 
a passage in the dedication of the Folio and an expression of Bacon: 
Count}-}' hands reach forthe milk, cream a^nd fruits, or what they have.' 

Bacon writes to Villiers: 

And now, because I am in the country, I will send you some of my country 
fruits, which with me are good meditations, which when I am in the city are choked 
with business.'' 

And in the " discourse touching the plaiitation in Ireland," he 
asks his majesty to accept ^'the like poor field-fruits." 

We can even imagine that in the line, 

And though thou hadst small Latine and less Greek, 
Ben Jonson has his jest at the man who had employed him to 
write these verses. For Jonson, it will be remembered, was an 
accurate classical scholar, while Bacon was not. The latter was 
like Montaigne, who declared he could never thoroughly acquire any 
language but his own. Dr. Abbott, head master of the City of 
London school, in his introduction to Mrs. Pott's great work,' refers 
to "several errors which will make Latin and Greek scholars feel 
uneasy. For these in part Bacon himself, or Bacon's amanuensis, is 
responsible ; and many of the apparent Latin solecisms or mis- 
spellings arise . . . from the manuscripts of the 7';7-';;«/.$'." He adds 
in a foot-note: 

I understand that it is the opinion of Mr. Maude Thompson, of the British 
Museum manuscript department, that all entries, except some of the French prov- 
erbs, are in Bacon's handwriting ; so that no amanuensis can bear the blame of 
the numerous errors in the Latin quotations. 

How "rare old Ben" must have enjoyed whacking Bacon over 

Shakespeare's shoulders, in verses written at the request of Bacon ! 

XI, A Gre.^ter Question. 

When the crushing blow of shame and humiliation fell upon 
Francis Bacon in 162 1, and he expected to die under it, he hurriedly 
drew a short will. It does not much exceed in length one page of 
Spedding's book, and yet in this brief document he found time to say: 

'^ Dctttcatinn, Folio 1623. ^^ Montagu, iii, p. 20. ^ Prom us, p. 13. 



loo WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOI' WRITE THE PLAYS. 

My compositions unpublished, or the fragments of them, I require my servant 
Harris to deliver to my brother Constable, to the end that if any of these be fit, in 
his judgment, to be published, he may accordingly dispose of them. And in partic- 
ular I wish the Elogium I wrote, In fcliccvt incnioriam Regime Elizahctluv, may be 
published. And to my brother Constable I give all my books; and to my servant 
Harris for this his service and care fifty pieces in gold, pursed up. 

He disposed of all his real property in live lines, for the pay- 
ment of his debts. 

And when Bacon came to draw his last will and testament/ he 

devoted a large part of it to the preservation of his writings. He 

says: 

For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to for- 
eign nations, and the next ages. But as to the diiralde part of my memory, luhicit 
consisteth of mv works and loritiiigs, I desire my executors, and especially Sir John- 
Constable, and my very good friend Mr. Bosvile, to take care that of all my writings, 
both of English and of Latin, there may be books fair bound and placed in the 
King's library, and in the library of the University of Cambridge, and in the 
library of Trinity College, where myself was bred, and in the library of the 
University of Oxonford, and in the library of my lord of Canterbury, and in 
the library of Eaton. 

Then he bequeaths his register books of orations and letters to 
the Bishop of Lincoln; and he further directs his executors to 
" take into their hands all my papers whatsoever, which are either 
in cabinets, boxes or presses, and them to seal up until they may at 
their leisure peruse them." 

We are asked to believe that William Shakspere was, neces- 
sarily, as the author of the Plays, a man of vast learning, the ownei* 
of many books, and that he left behind him, unpublished at the 
time of his death, such marvelous and mighty works as The 
Tempest, Macbeth, Julius Cccsar, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Henry 
VII T. and many more; and that, while he carefully bequeathed 
his old clothes and disposed of his second-best bed, he made 
no provision for the publication of his works, " ///r durable part 
of his memory y 

Is it reasonable ? Is it probable ? Is it not grossly improbable ? 
What man capable of writing Macbeth and Julius Ccesar, and know- 
ing their value to mankind — knowing that they lay in his house, in 
some "cabinet, box or press," probably in but one manuscript copy 
each, and that they might perish in the hands of his illiterate family 
and "bookless" neighbors — would, while carefully remembering. 

> Lt'/c and Works, vol. vii, p. 539. 



THE LOST LIBRARY AND MANUSCRIPTS. loi 

SO much of the litter and refuse of the world, have died and made 
no provision for their publication? 

But it may be said he did not own them; he may have sold 
them. It seems not, for Heminge and Condell, in their intro- 
duction to the first Folio, say that they received the original copies 
which they published from Shakespeare himself: 

And what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received 
front him a blot in his papers. 

And again: 

It has been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been wished, that the^uthor 
himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings. 

What right would he have had to set them forth if they 

belonged to some one else ? 

But since it hath been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that 
right, we pray you do not envy his friends the office of their care. 

If this introduction means anything, it means that Shakspere 
owned these Plays; that he would have had the right to publish 
them if death had not interfered; that his friends and fellow-actors, 
Heminge and Condell, had, " to keep the memory of so worthy a 
friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare," assumed the task 
of publishing them; that they had received the original manu- 
scripts from him — that is, from his family — free from blot, and that 
they published from them, as all the quarto copies were "stolne 
and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds and 
stealthes of injurious impostors." 

And yet these Plays, which belonged to Shakspere's wealthy 
family, as the heirs of the author, which were printed by his " fel- 
lows " to sell to make money — for they say in their introduction: 

The fate of all books depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads 
alone but of your purses. . . . Read and censure. Do so, but buy first. 

— these Plays were not published or paid for by Shakspere's 

family, but, as the Folio itself tells us, were 

Printed at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I. Smithweeke, and W. 
Aspley, 1623. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WRITER OF THE FLAYS A /.Air YEA'. 

Why may that not be the skull of a lawyer ? 

Hamlet, v, i . 

NOTHING is more conclusively established than that the 
author of the Plays was a lawyer. 
Several works have been written in England and America to 
demonstrate this. I quote a few extracts: 
Franklin Fiske Heard says: 

The Comedv of Errors shows that Shakespeare was very familiar with some of 
the most refined of the principles of the science of special pleading, a science 
which contains the quintessence of the law. . . . In the second part of T/t'wn' /F., 
act V, scene 5, Pistol uses the term absque hoc, which is technical in the last degree. 
This was a species of traverse, used by special pleaders when the record was in 
Latin, known by the denomination of a special traverse. The subtlety of its texture, 
and the total dearth of explanation in all the reports and treatises extant in the 
time of Shakespeare with respect to its principle, seem to justify the conclusion 
that he iiiiisi have attained a knowledge of it fro >n actual practice.'^ 

Senator Davis says: 

We seem to have here something more than a sciolist's temerity of indulgence 
in the terms of an unfamiliar art. No legal solecisms 7vill he found. The abstrusest 
elements of the common law are impressed into a disciplined service with every 
evidence of the right and knowledge of commanding. Over and over again, 
where such knowledge is unexampled in writers unlearned in the law, Shakespeare 
appears in perfect possession of it. In the law of real property, its rules of tenure 
and descents, its entails, its fines and recoveries, and their vouchers and double 
vouchers; in the procedure of the courts, the method of bringing suits and of arrests; 
the nature of actions, the rules of pleading, the law of escapes and of contempt of 
court; in the principles of evidence, both technical and philosophical; in the dis- 
tinction between the temporal and spiritual tribunal.^; in the law of attainder and 
forfeiture; in the requisites of a valid marriage; in the presumption of legitimacy; 
in the learning of the law of prerogative; in the inalienable character of the crown, 
this mastership appears with surprising authority. - 

And again the same writer says: 

I know of no writer who has so impressed into his service the terms of any 
science or art. They come from the mouth of every personage: from the Queen; 
from the child; from the merry wives of Windsor; from the Egyptian fervor of 
Cleopatra; from the lovesick Paphian goddess; from violated Lucrece; from Lear; 

1 Shakespeare as a Lawyer, pp. 43, 48. "^ The T.av> in Shakes/eare, p. 4. 

102 



THE WRITER OF THE PLAYS A LAWYER. lo; 

Hamlet and Othello; from Shakespeare himself, soliloquizing in his sonnets; from 
Dogberry and Prospero; from riotous Falstaff and melancholy Jacques. Shake- 
speare utters them at all times as standard coin, no matter when or in what mint 
stamped. These emblems of his industry are woven into his style like the bees 
into the imperial purple of Napoleon's coronation robes.' 

Lord Chief Justice Campbell sees the clearest evidences in the 
Plays that the writer was learned in the law. I quote a few of his 
expressions: 

These jests cannot be supposed to arise from anything in the laws or customs 
of Syracuse; but they show the author to he very fa in i liar with some of the most 
abstruse proceedings in English jurisprudence} 

Quoting the description of the arrest of Dromio in The Comedy 
of Errors, he says: 

Here we have a most circumstantial and graphic account of an English arrest 
on mesne process [" before judgment "] in an action on the case.'^ 

In act iii, scene i (of As You Like It) a deep technical knowledge of the laiu is 
displayed.'^ 

It is likewise remarkable that Cleomenes and Dion i^The Winter's Tale, Act iii, 
scene 2), the messenger who brought back the response from the oracle of Delphi, 
to be given in evidence, are sworn to the genuineness of the document they pro- 
duce almost in the very words now used by the Lord Chancellor when an officer 
presents at the bar of the House of Lords the copy of a record of a court of justice: 

You here shall swear. . . . 

That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have 

Been both at Delphos; and from thence have brought 

The sealed-up oracle, by the hand delivered 

Of great Apollo's priest; and that since then 

You have not dared to break the holy seal 

Nor read the secrets in't.* 

And again, Lord Chief Justice Campbell says: 

We find in several of the Histories Shakespeare's fondness for law terpis; 
and it is still more remarkable that wJienever he indulges this propensity he uniforinlv 
lavs down good la70.^ 

While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the law 
of marriage, of wills and of inheritance, to Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he pro- 
pounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of exception, nor writ of error.'' 

If Lord Eldon could be supposed to have written the play, I do not see how he 
would be chargeable with having forgotten any of his law while writing it.* 

The indictment in which Lord Say was arraigned, in act iv, scene 7 {2d Henty 
VI.), seems draicn by no inexperienced hand. . . . How acquired I know not, but 
it is quite certain that the drawer of this indictment must have had some acquaint- 
ance with The Crown Circuit Companion, and must have had a full and accurate 

1 The Law in Shak., p. 51. ' Ibid., p. 39. ^ Ibid., p. 60. ' Ibid., p. io8. 

^■Shak. Legal Acquirements, p. 38. * Ibid., p. 42. '• Ibid., p. 61. ^ Ibid., p. 73. 



I04 



WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



knowledge of that rather obscure and intricate subject — " Felony and Benefit of 
Clergy."' 

Speaking of Gloster's language in Lear^ Lord Campbell says: 

In forensic discussions respecting legitimacy the question is put, whether the 

individual whose status is to be determined is "capable," i.e., capable of inheriting; 

but it is only a lawyer who could express the idea of legitimizing a natural son by 

simply saying: 

I'll work the means 
To make him capable. 

Speaking of Hamlet, his Lordship says: 

Earlier in the play^ Marcellus inquires what was the cause of the warlike 
preparations in Denmark: 

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, 
And foreign mart for implements of war? 
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task 
Doth not divide the Sunday from the week? 

Such confidence has there been in Shakespeare's accuracy that this passage 
has been quoted, both by text-writers and by judges on the bench, as an authority 
upon the legality of the press-gang, and upon the debated question whether 
shipwrights as well as common seamen are liable to be pressed into the service 
of the royal navy.* 

Lord Campbell quotes sonnet xlvi, of which he says: 

I need not go farther than this sonnet, which is so intensely legal in its language 
and imagery that without a conside7-able knowledge of English forensic procedure it 
cannot be fully understood. 

Sonnet XLVI, 

Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war 

How to divide the conquest of thy sight; 
Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would bar, 

My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right. 
My Heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie 

(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes), 
But the Defendant doth that plea deny. 

And says in him thy fair appearance lies. 
To 'cide this title is impaneled 

A quest of Thoughts, all tenants of the Heart; 
And by their verdict is determined 

The clear Eye's moiety, and the dear Heart's part; 
As thus: mine Eyes' due is thine outward part, 
And my Heart's right, thine inward love of heart. 

One is reminded, in reading this, of Brownell's humorous lines: 

The Lawyer's Invocation to Spring. 



Whereas on certain boughs and sprays 
Now divers birds are heard to sing; 

And sundry flowers their heads upraise. 
Hail to the coming on of spring! 



\ 



^ Shak. Legat Acquirements, p. 75. ^ Ilaiiilci, i, 1. 

^2 Act ii, scene I. ' ^ Shak. Legal Acquirements, ^."i-!,. 



THE WRITER OE THE PLAYS A LAWYER. 105 

The songs of those said birds arouse 

The memory of our youthful hours, 
As green as those said sprays and boughs, 

As fresh and sweet as those said flowers. 

The birds aforesaid — happy pairs ! — 
« Love, 'mid the aforesaid boughs, inshrines 

In freehold nests; themselves their heirs, 
Administrators and assigns. 

Oh, busiest term of Cupid's court, 

Where tender plaintiffs actions bring; 
Season of frolic and of sport. 

Hail — as aforesaid — coming spring ! 

Lord Campbell says: 

In Antony and Cleopatra,^ Lepidus, in trying to palliate the bad qualities and 
misdeeds of Antony, uses the language of a conveyancer's chambers in Lincoln's 

Inn: 

His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, 
More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary 
Rather than purchased. 

That is to say, they are taken by descent, not hy purchase. Lay gents (viz., all 
except lawyers) understand by purchase buying for a sum of money, called the 
price, but lawyers consider that purchase is opposed to descent; that all things 
come to the owner either hy descent or hy purchase, and that whatever does not 
come through operation of law by descent is purchased, although it may be the free 
gift of a donor. Thus, if land be devised by will to A in fee, he takes by pur- 
chase; or to B for life, remainder to A and his heirs (B being a stranger to A), A 
takes hy purchase; but upon the death of A, his eldest son would take by descent.^ 

Appleton Morgan says: 

But most wonderful of all is the dialogue in the graveyard scene. 

In the quarto the two grave-diggers are wondering whether Ophelia, having 
committed suicide, is to be buried in consecrated ground, instead of at a cross- 
road with a stake driven through her body, and clumsily allude to the probability 
that, having been of noble birth, a pretext will be found to avoid the law. 

It happens that in the first volume of Plowden's Reports there is a case (Hales 
T'.f. Petit, I. PI. 253) of which the facts bore a wonderful resemblance to the story 
of Ophelia. 

Sir James Hales was a judge of the Common Pleas, who had prominently con- 
cerned himself in opposing the succession of Mary the Bloody. When Mary 
ascended the throne, he expected decapitation, and was actually imprisoned, but 
by some influence released. His brain, however, became affected by his vicissi- 
tudes, and he finally committed suicide by throwing himself into a water-course. 
Suicide was felony, and his estates became escheated to the crown. The crown in 
turn granted them to one Petit. But Lady Hales, instructed that the escheat 
might be attacked, brought ejectment against Petit, the crown tenant. The point 
was as to whether the forfeiture could be considered as having taken place in the 
lifetime of Sir James; for, if not, the plaintiff took the estate by survivorship. 
In other words, could Sir James be visited with the penalty for plunging into a 

'Act I, scene 4. ^S/iai. Le^at Acguirenwnis, p. 94. 



Io6 WILLIAM SlIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

stream of water? For that was all he did actually do. The suicide was only the 
result of his act, and can a man die during his life? Precisely the point in 
Ophelia's case as to her burial in consecrated ground. If Ophelia only threw her 
self into the water, she was only a suicide by consequence, tiPit coitsfa/ that she 
proposed to die in the aforesaid water. So the case was argued, and the debate of 
the momentous questions — whether a man who commits suicide dies during his 
own life or only begins to die; whether he drowns himself, or only goes into the 
water; whether going into water is a felony, or only part of a felony, and whether 
a subject can be attainted and his lands escheated for only part of a felony — is so 
rich in serious absurdity, and the grave-diggers' dialogue over Ophelia's proposed 
interment in holy ground so literal a travesty, that the humor of the dialogue — 
entirely the unconscious humor of the learned counsel in Hales 7's. Petit — can 
hardly be anything but proof that, admitting William Shakespeare to have written 
that graveyard scene, William Shakespeare was a practicing lawyer. 

Especially since it is to be remembered that Plowden' s report tvas then, as it is 
to-day, accessible in A^oniian Latin /aw jargon and black-letter type, utterly tinintelli- 
gil'le to anylnntv httt an expert antiqiiaria)!, and utterly itnin7'iti)tg to anybody. Law 
Norman or law Latin was just as unattractive to laymen in Elizabeth's day as it is 
to lawyers in ours; if possible, more so. 

The decision in Hales vs. Petit — on account of the standing of parties-plain- 
tiff — might have been town-talk for a day or two; but that the wearying, and, to 
us, ridiculous dialectics of the argument and decision were town-talk, seems the 
suggestion of a very simple or of a very bold ignorance as to town life and 
manners. 

Besides, nobody sets the composition of Ila/nlet earlier than Nash's mention 
of "whole Hamlets" in 1587 or 1589 — and every commentator of standing puts it 
about ten years later. That the hair-splitting of a handful of counsel would 
remain town-talk for twenty-five or thirty-six years is preposterous to suppose. 
Reference to the arguments in that case could only have been had from Plowden's 
report. 

My friend Senator Davis' points out another curious fact, viz.: 
that a comparison of the Hamlet of the quarto of 1603, with the 
Folio of 1623, shows that part of the text was re-written, to make it 
more correct in a legal point of view. In the quarto we read: 

Who by a sealed compact, well ratified by law 
And heraldrie, did forfeit with his life all those 
His lands, which he stood seized of, to the conqueror, 
Against the which a moiety competent 
Was gaged by our king. 

But to state this in legal form there is appended, when Hamlei 
comes to be printed in the Folio: 

— which had returned 
To the inheritance of Fortinbras 
Had he bin Vanquisher, as by the same cov'nant 
The carriage of the article designed, 
His fell to Hamlet.''- 

* The La7V in .Shaki's/>e ^re. ^ Ilainlei, i, i. 



THE WRITER OE THE PLAYS A LAWYER. 107 

What poet, not a lawyer, would have stated the agreement in 
such legal phraseology; and what poet, not a lawyer, would have 
subsequently added the lines given, to show the consideration mov- 
ing to Fortinbras for the contract ? And this for the benefit of such 
an audience as commonly frequented the Globe ! 

Richard Grant White says: 

No dramatist of the time, not even Beaumont, who was a younger son of a 
judge of the Common Pleas, and who, after studying in the inns of court, aban- 
doned law for the drama, used legal phrases with Shakespeare's readiness and 
exactness. And the significance of this fact is heightened by another, that it is 
only to the language of the law that he exhibits this inclination. The phrases 
peculiar to other occupations serve him on rare occasions by way of description, 
comparison or illustration, generally when something in the scene suggests them; 
but legal phrases flow from his pen as part of his Tocaludarv and parcel of his 
thought. The word purchase, for instance, which in ordinary use meant, as 
now it means, to acquire by giving value, applies in law to all legal modes of 
obtaining property, except inheritance or descent. And in this peculiar sense the 
word occurs five times in Shakespeare's thirty-four plays, but only in a single 
passage in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. And in the first scene 
of the Midsuvtmer iVigkt's Dream the father of Hermia begs the ancient privilege 
of Athens, that he may dispose of his daughter either to Demetrius or to death. 

According to our law 
Immediately provided in that case. 

He pleads the statute; and the words run off his tongue in heroic verse, as if he 
was reading them from a paper. 

As the courts of law in Shakespeare's time occupied public attention much 
more than they do now, it has been .suggested that it was in attendance upon them 
that he picked up his legal vocabulary. But this supposition not only fails to 
account for Shakespeare's peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of that phras- 
eology — it does not even place him in the way of learning those terms, his use of 
which is most remarkable, which are not such as he would have heard at ordinary 
proceedings at nisi pi-iiis, but such as refer to the tenure or transfer of real property 
— " fine and recovery," "statutes merchant," "purchase," "indenture," "tenure," 
"double voucher," " fee simple," " fee farm," "remainder," "reversion," "for- 
feiture," etc. This conveyancer's jargon could not have been picked up by hang- 
ing around the courts of law in London 250 years ago, when suits as to the title to 
real property were comparatively so rare. And besides, Shakespeare uses his law 
just as freely in his early plays, written in his first London years, as in those pro- 
duced at a later period. Just as exactly, too; for the correctness and propriety 
with which these terms are introduced have compelled the admiration of a chief 
justice and a lord chancellor.' 

And again Mr. White says: 

Genius, although it reveals general truth and facilitates all acquirement, does 
not impart facts or acquaintance with general terms; how then can we account tor 
the fact that, in an age when it was the common practice for young lawyers to write 
plays, one playwright left upon his plays a stronger, a sharper legal stamp than 

1 R. G. White, Life and Genius nf .Slia/i., p. 74. 



io8 WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE FLAYS. 

appears upon those of any of his contemporaries, and that the characters of this 
stamp are those of the complicated law of real property.^ 

And the same man who wrote this, and who still believed the 
deer-stealer wrote the Plays, said, shortly before his death, in the 
Atlantic Magazine: 

The notion that he was once an attorney's clerk is blown to pieces. 

The first to suggest that Shakspere might, at some time, have 

been a lawyer's clerk, was Malone, who, in 1790, said: 

His knowledge of legal terms is not merely such as might be acquired by the 
casual observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it has the appearance of 
technical skiW, and he is so fond of displaying it on all occasions, that I suspect he 
was early initiated in at least the forms of law, and was employed, while he yet 
remained at Stratford, in the office of some country attorney, who was at the same 
time a petty conveyancer, and perhaps also the seneschal of some manor court. 

But even Lord Chief Justice Campbell, who, as we have seen, 

asserts that the writer of the Plays was familiar with the abstrusest 

parts of the law, is forced to abandon this theory. He says, writing 

to J. Payne Collier, who favored the law-clerk theory: 

Resuming the judge, however, I must lay down that your opponents are not 
called upon to prove a negative, and that the onus probandi rests upon you. You 
must likewise remember that you require us implicitly to believe a fact, which, were 
it true, positive and irrefragable evidence, in Shakespeare's own handwriting, might 
have been forthcoming to establish it. Not having been actually enrolled as an 
attorney, neither the records of the local court at Stratford, nor of the superior 
courts at Westminster, would present his name, as being concerned in any suits as 
an attorney; but it might have been reasonably expected that there would have been 
deeds or wills witnessed by him still extant; and, after a Toy diligent search, none 
such can he discovered. Nor can this consideration be disregarded, that between 
Nash's Epistle, in the end of the sixteenth century, and Chalmers' suggestion, more 
than two hundred years afterwards, there is no hint, by his foes or his friends, of- 
Shakespeare having consumed pens, paper, ink and pounce in an attorney's office 
at Stratford.'^ 

The Nash Epistle here referred to was an " Epistle to the Gen- 
tlemen Students of the Two Universities, by Thomas Nash," pre- 
fixed to the first edition of Robert Green's Menaphon, published, 
according to the title-page, in 1589. In it Nash says: 

It is a common practice now-a-days, amongst a sort of shifting companions 
that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of noverint, 
whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the endeavors of art, that 
could scarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should have need; yet English 
Seneca, read by candle-light, yields many good sentences, as Blood is a beggar, and 
so forth ; and if you entreat him fair, in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole 
Hamlets ; I should say handfuls of tragical speeches. 

' Li/f and Genius o/S/tak., p. 76. ''Skak. Legal Acquir.'-'i'nis, p. no. 



THE WRITER OF THE PLAYS A LAWYER. 



109 



This epistle has been cited to prove that Shakspere was a law- 
yer. In Elizabeth's reign deeds were in the Latin tongue; and all 
deeds poll, and many other papers, began with the words: " Nover- 
iNT imiversi per pj'esetites" — "Be it known to all men by these 
presents;" — and hence the business of an attorney was known as 
" the trade of noverint." 

But here are the difficulties that attend this matter: In the first 
place Nash charges that the party he has in view, " the shifting 
companion " who could afford whole Hamlets, was not only a lawyer, 
but born a huvyer; — "the trade of noverint whereto they luere born!' 
In other words, that the party who wrote Hamlet had inherited the 
trade of lawyer. We say of one " he was born a gentleman," and 
we mean, thereby, that his father before him was a gentleman. 
Now, it is within the possibilities that Shakespeare might have 
studied for a few months, or a year or two, in some lawyer's 
office, but assuredly his father was not a lawyer; he could not 
even write his own name; he was a glover, wool-dealer or butcher. 
But the description applies precisely to Bacon, whose father had 
been an eminent lawyer, and who was therefore born a noverint. 

But there is another mystery about this Nash Epistle. 

It is universally conceded, by all the biographers and commen- 
tators, that Shakespeare did not begin to write for the stage until 
1592. Our highest and most recent authority, J. O. Halliwell-Phil- 
lipps,' fixes the date of the appearance of Shakespeare's first play as 
the third of March, 1592, when Henry VI. was put on the boards 
for the first time; and this same Nash tells us that between March 
3d, 1592, and the beginning of July, it had been witnessed by 
"ten thousand spectators at least." And yet we are asked to 
believe that when Nash, in 15S9, or, as some will have it, in 1587, 
wrote his epistle, and mocked at some lawyer who had written 
Hamlet, he referred to the butcher's apprentice, who did not com- 
mence to write until three or five years subsequently ! 

And there are not wanting proofs, as we will see hereafter, that 
Hamlet appeared in 1585, the very year Shakspere's wife was 
delivered of the twins, Hamnet and Judith; the very year probably, 
when Shakspere, aged twenty-one, whipped, scourged and im- 
prisoned for poaching, fled from Stratford to London. 

^Outlines of the Life of Shak., p. 64. 



no WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRirE THE PLAYS. 

We can conceive the possibility of a rude and ignorant peasant- 
boy coming to London, and, conscious of his defects and possess- 
ing great powers, applying himself with superhuman industry to 
study and self-cultivation; but we will find that Hamlet, that most 
thoughtful and scholarly production, was on the boards in 15S7, if 
not in 1585; and Venus and Adonis, the "first heir of his invention," 
must have antedated even this. 

Richard Grant White says: 

It has most unaccountably been assumed that this passage [in Nash's Epistle] 
refers to Shakespeare. . . . That Shakespeare had written this tragedy in 1586, 
when he was but twenty-two years old, is improbable to the verge of im- 
possibility.' 

Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

The preceding notices may fairly authorize us to infer that the ancient play of 
Hamlet was written either by an attorney or an attorney's clerk.'-' 

The Shakspereans, to avoid the logical conclusions that flow 
from this Epistle of Nash, are forced to suggest that there must 
have been an older play of Hamlet, written by some one else — "the 
ancient Hamlet,'" to which Halliwell-Phillipps alludes. But there 
is no evidence that any other playwright wrote a play of Hamlet. 
It is not probable. 

The essence of a new play is its novelty. We find Augustine 
Phillips, one of the members of Shakspere's company, objecting to 
playing Richard II., in 1600, for the entertainment of the followers 
of Essex, because it was an old play, and would not draw an audi- 
ence, and thereupon Sir Gilly Merrick pays him forty shillings 
extra to induce him to present it. 

The name of a new play has sometimes as much to do with its 
success as the name of a new novel. Is it probable that a play- 
wright, having written a new play and desirous to draw a crowd and 
make money, would affix to it the name of some old play, written by 
some one else, which had been on the boards for ten years or more, 
and had been worn threadbare ? Fancy Dickens publishing a new 
novel and calling it Roderick Random. Or Boucicault bringing out 
a new drama under the name of Othello. The theory is absurd. 

We have now two forms of the play of Hamlet, published within 
a year of each other, both with Shakespeare's name on the title- 

' Life atid Geniu.s- of Shak., p. 71. "^ Outlines Life of Shak., p. 270. 



THE WRITER OF THE PLAYS A LAWYER. m 

page; and one is the crude, first form of the play, and the other is 
its perfected form, "enlarged to almost twice as much again." Is 
this first form "the ancient Hamlet" to which Nash alluded in 
1589? or is it the successor of some still earlier edition? Bacon 
said of himself: " I never alter but I add." He re-wrote his Essays, 
we are told, thirty times. Says his chaplain, Rawley: 

I have myself at least twelve copies of his Insfatiratioii, revised year after year, 

one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame thereof, till at 

last it came to that model in which it was committed to the press, as many living 

I creatures do lick their young ones till they bring them to the strength of their limbs. 

A 

Why is it not probable that the young novcrtnt, " born a law- 
yer," Francis Bacon, of age in 1582, may, in 1585, when twenty-three 
years of age, having been " put to all the learning that his time 
could make him master of," have written a play for the stage, 
called Hamlet, at a time when William Shakspere, three years his 
junior in age, and fifty years his junior in opportunities, was lying 
drunk under the crab-tree, or howling under the whips of the 
beadles? 

Hamlet, then, was written by a lawyer; and Shakspere never 
was a lawyer. 

This fact must also not be forgotten, that the knowledge of the 
law shown in the Plays is not such as could be acquired during a 
few months spent in a lawyer's office in the youth of the poet, and 
which would constitute such a species of learning as might be 
recalled upon questioning. It is evident that the man who wrote 
the Plays was a thorough lawyer, a learned lawyer, a lawyer 
steeped in and impregnated with the associations of his profession, 
and who bubbled over with its language whenever he opened his 
mouth. For he did not use law terms only when speaking upon 
legal subjects: the phraseology of the courts rose to his lips even 
in describing love scenes. He makes the fair Maria, in Love's Labor 
Lost, pun upon a subtle distinction of the law: 

Boyct. So you grant pasture for me. 

Offering to kiss her. 
Maria. Not so, gentle beast: 
My lips are no common though several they be. 
Boyet. Belonging to whom ? 
Maria. To my fortunes and me.' 

* Act ii, scene i. 



112 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID XOT WRITE THE TLA VS. 

Grant White gives this explanation: 

Maria's meaninc; and her first pun are plain enough; the second has been hith- 
erto explained by the statement that the several or severall in England was a part 
of the common, set apart for some particular person or purpose, and that the town 
bull had equal rights of pasture in common and several. It seems to me, however, 
that we have here another exhibition of Shakespeare's familiarity with the law, 
and that the allusion is to tenancy in common by several (/.<■., divided, distinct) 
title. Thus: " Tenants in Common are they which have Lands or Tenements in 
Fee-simple, fee-taile, or for terme of life, &c., and they have such Lands or Tene- 
ments by severall Titles and not by a joynt Title, and none of them know by this 
his severall, but they ought by the Law to occupie these Lands or Tenements in 
common and pro iiidii'iso, to take the profits in common." ' . . . Maria's lips were 
several, as being two, and (as she says in the next line) as belonging in common 
to her fortunes and to herself, but they were no common pasturage. - 

There was no propriety in placing puns on law phrases in the 
mouth of a young lady, and still less in representing a French lady 
as familiar with English laws and customs as to the pasturage of 
the town-bull. These phrases found their way to the fair lips of 
Maria because the author was brimming full of legal phraseology. 

Take another instance. We read of — 

A confracl of eternal bond of love, 
Confirmed h^ niiitiial joinder oi your hands. 
Attested hy the holy close of lips. 
Strengthened by interchans;cment of your rings; 
And all the ceremony of this eompaet 
Sealed in my function by my testimony.^ 

To be so saturated with the law the writer must have been in 
daily practice of the law, and in hourly converse with men of the 
same profession. He did not seek these legal phrases; they burst 
from him involuntarily and on all occasions. 

Gerald Massey well says: 

The worst of it, for the theory of his having been an attorney's clerk, is that it 
will not account for his insight into law. His knowledge is not office-sweepings, 
but ripe fruits, mature, as though he had spent his life in their gro7vth.^ 

But it is said that a really learned lawyer could not have writ- 
ten the Plays, because the law put forth in the great trial scene of 
The Afcrchaiit of Venice is not good law. 

Lord Chief Justice Campbell, however, reviews the proceedings 
in the case, and declares that " the trial is duly conducted accord- 
ing to the strict forms of legal procedure. . . . Antonio is made to 

I Co. Litt., lib. iii, cap. 4, sec. 292. ^ Twelfth Nighty v, i. 

^ Stm/ccs/^-nre, vol. iii, p. 453. * Shakespeare^ s Sonnets, p. 504. 



THE liKlTER OF THE FLAYS A LAIVYEK. 113 

confess that Shylock is entitled to the pound of flesh . . . accord- 
ing to the rigid strictness of the commo?i law of England^ 

It is claimed that Shylock could not enforce the penalty of his 
bond, but was entitled only to the sum loaned and legal interest; 
and that Antonio should have applied for an injunction to restrain 
Shylock from cutting off the pound of flesh. 

Imagine the play so reformed. The audience are looking for- 
ward with feelings of delight to the great trial scene, with its mar- 
velous alternations of hope and despair ; with Portia's immortal 
appeal for mercy while the Jew whets his knife; and anticipating 
the final triumph of virtue and the overthrow of cruelty. The cur- 
tain rolls up, and a dapper lawyer's-clerk steps forward to the foot- 
lights to inform the expectant audience that Antonio has procured 
an injunction, with proper sureties, from the Court of Equity, and 
that they will find the whole thing duly set forth in the next num- 
ber of the Law Reporter! 

In the first place, it is absurd to try a Venetian lawsuit by the 
antique and barbarous code of England. 

In the next place, it is not clear that, even by the rules of the 
Court of Equity of England, Antonio could have been relieved of 
the penalty without good cause shown. 

There seems to be a distinction taken in equity between penalties and forfeit- 
ures. ... In the latter, although compensation can be made, relief is not always 
given.' 

In the case of Antonio, the pound of flesh was to h^ forfeited. 

If you repay me not on such a day, 

In such a place, such sum or sums as are 

Expressed in the condition, let the fotfeit 

Be nominated for an equal pound 

Of your fair flesh.'' 

And in the court scene Shylock says : 

My deeds upon my head ! I crave the law, 
The penalty and forfeit of my bond.* 

And Portia says: 

Why, this bond is forfeit. 

Certain it is, Bacon, a thorough lawyer, did not understand that 
he could escape the penalty of a bond, even under the laws of Eng- 

' 3 Daniel's Chan. Plead, and Prac, p. 1946; 2 Story's Equity Jur.y § 1321, etc. 
2 Act i, scene 3. ^ Act iv, scene i. 



114 



WILLIAM SIIAKSPEKE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



land, by simply paying the debt and interest. In July, 1603, he 

was arrested at the suit of a Jew (the original probably of Shylock), 

and thrown into a sponging-house, and we have his letter to his 

cousin Robert, Lord Cecil, Secretary of State, begging him to use 

his power to prevent his creditors from " taking any part of the 

penalty [of his bond] but principal, interest and costs." 

The Judge says: 

There is no power in Venice 
Can alter a decree established. 

' Twill be recorded for a precedent. 

And many an error by the same example 

Will rush into the state. 

Before a writ of error can be taken from Portia's ruling, it must 
be shown by some precedent, or " decree established," of the Venetian 
chancery, that Antonio had the right to avoid the forfeiture by ten- 
dering the amount received and simple interest; and as no such man 
as Shylock ever lived, and no such case as that in question was ever 
tried* it will puzzle the critics to know just how far back to go to 
establish ihe priority of such a decision. 

Again, the point is made that, if Shylock was entitled to his 
pound of flesh, he was entitled to the blood that would necessarily 
flow in cutting it; upon the principle, it is said, that if I own a 
piece of land I have the right to a necessary roadway over another 
man's land to reach it. True. But in case I can only reach my 
land by committing murder (for that was what Shylock was under- 
taking), my lesser property right must be subordinated to the 
greater natural right of the other man to his life. 

But all this reasoning, if it be intended to show that the writer 
of the play was but partially learned in the law, must give way to 
the fact that S/iy/ock vs. Anto?iio is a dramatic representation, for 
popular entertainment, and not a veritable law-suit. The plot of 
The 'Merchant of Venice was taken from the Italian romance // 
J^ecorone, of Giovanni Fiorentino, written in 1378; and there we 
have the decision of the judge, that the Jew must cut a precise 
pound of flesh, neither more nor less, and that, if he draw a drop of 
Christian blood in so doing, he must die for it. 

It would be absurd to suppose that a dramatic writer, even 
though a lawyer, would be obliged to leave out these striking 
incidents, and substitute a tamer something, in accordance with 



THE WRITER OE THE PI.AYS A LAWYER. 



115 



that barbarous jumble of justice and injustice called law in 
England. 

But the question after all is to be decided by Venetian, not 
English precedents. The scene is laid in Venice. 

John T. Doyle, Esq., of California, writes a letter to Lawrence 
Barrett, Esq., the celebrated actor, which has been published in the 
Overland Monthly, in which he discusses "The Case of Shylock." 
He says: 

The trial scene in 'Ehe Mercluiitt of W'liice has, however, always seemed 
inconsistent with his [Bacon's] supposed legal learning, for the proceedings in it 
are such as never could have occurred in any court administering English law. 
Lord Campbell, in his letter to Payne Collyer, has attempted to gloss over the 
difficulty, but to all common lawyers the attempt is a failure. Save in the fact 
that the scene presents a plaintiff, a defendant and a judge — characters essential 
to litigation under any system of procedure — there is no resemblance in the pro- 
ceedings on the stage to anything that could possibly occur in an English court, or 
any court administering English law. No jury is impaneled to determine the 
facts, no witnesses called by either side; on the contrary, when the court opens, 
the duke who presides is already fully informed of the facts, and has even com- 
municated them, in writing, to Bellario, a learned doctor of Padua, and invited 
him to come and render judgment in the case. 

Mr. Doyle then proceeds to give his experience of a lawsuit he 

had in the Spanish-American republic of Nicaragua in 185 1-2. 

After describing the verbal summons he received from the alguazil 

to the alcalde in his court, Mr. Doyle says: 

Proceedings of some sort were going on at the moment, but the alcalde sus- 
pended them, received me very courteously, and directed some one present to go 
and call Don Dolores Bermudez, the plaintiff, into court. The substance of Mr. 
Bermudez' complaint against the company was then stated to me, and I was 
asked for my answer to it. I sent for my counsel, and the company's defense was 
stated orally. The contract out of which the controversy arose was produced, and 
perhaps a witness or two examined, and some oral discussion followed; those 
details I forget, for there was nothing in them that struck me as strange. There 
was, in fact, little, if any, dispute about the facts of the case, the real controversy 
being as to the company's liability and its extent. We were finally informed that 
on a given day we should be expected to attend again, when the judge would be 
prepared with his decision. 

At the appointed time we attended accordingly, and the judge read a paper in 
which all the facts were stated, at the conclusion of which he announced to us that 
he proposed to submit the question of law involved to Don Buenaventura Silva, a 
practicing lawyer of Granada, as a "jurisconsult," unless some competent objec- 
tions were made to him. I learned then that I could challenge the proposed ju- 
risconsult for consanguinity, affinity or favor, just as we challenge a juror. I knew 
of no cause of challenge against him; my counsel said he was an unexceptionable 
person; and so he was chosen, and the case was referred to him. Some days 
after, he returned the papers to the alcaldt' with his opinion, which was in my 
favor, and the plaintiff's case was dismissed. 



ii6 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT U'RirE THE PLAYS. 

In the course of the same afternoon, or next day, I received an intimation' 
that Don Buenaventura expected from me a gratification — the name in that coun- 
try for what we call a gratuity — and I think the sum of $200 was named. This 
did not harmonize with my crude notions of the administration of justice, and I 
asked for explanations. They were given in the stereotyped form used to explain 
every other anomaly in that queer country, "Costiiiii/>iv del pais." I thought it a- 
custom more honored in the breach than the observance. 

Here we find that the writer of the Plays followed, in all proba- 
bility, the exact course of procedure usual in Venice, and in all 
countries subject to the civil law. We even have, as in Portia's 
case, the expectation that the judge should be rewarded with a. 
gratuity. 

The only difference between the writer of the Plays and his 
critics is, that he knew what he was talking about, and they did not. 

My friend Senator Davis, of Minnesota, as a crowning proof 
that Francis BaccTn did not write the Plays, says: 

. . . Again, Bacon was actively engaged in the court of chancery many years- 
before he became Lord Chancellor. It was then that the memorable war of juris- 
diction was waged between Ellesmere and Coke — and yet there is not in Shake- 
speare a single phrase, word or application of any principle peculiar to the 
chancery.' 

To this my friend John A. Wilstach, Esq.. the learned translator 
of Virgil,'"' and an eminent lawyer, says in a letter addressed to me: 

In the English courts, ancient and modern — as even laymen know — the 
practice at common law and in chancery were and are severed, although the bar- 
riers between the two are now, by the gradual adoption of chancery rules in com- 
mon law practice, largely broken down. In the time of Bacon and Shakespeare 
the division was distinct : the common-law lawyer was not a chancery practitioner; 
the chancery practitioner was not a practitioner in the courts of common law. 
But the general language of both branches of the profession was necessarily (for 
in history and method they intertwined), if even superficially, known to the fol- 
lowers of both, and the probability is that a practitioner of the one would easily 
use the current verbiage of the other; indeed it would be strange if either should 
hold away from the other. A Lord Coke, in the wide scope of literature, would 
relax his common-law exclusiveness and enlarge the narrow circuit of his pro- 
fessional prepossessions. A Lord Bacon, a student or a judge in chancery, 
would delight to turn aside from the roses and lilies of equity — some of them 
exotic plants — and become, for the time, a gratified wanderer in an historic com- 
mon of pasture, among the butterflies and bees of an indigenous jurisprudence. 
Hence my suggestion, opposed to that of the learned jurist, is, that this very scope 
and freedom of law in literature is what the writer of the Shakespeare Plays has 
given himself. And I find in the rambling pasture of the common law, according 
to his own outgivings, he has met, besides its attractive features, other and repel- 
ling ones — thorns, quagmires and serpents. I find that, on a close examination of 

^ I.aif in .S/uiA-i-s/>,-iu-i-. - Hostc m : 1 louulium, Mifflin i'^ C". 1884. 



THE WRfTF.R OF THE PLAYS A LAWYER. 



"7 



the Shakespeare Plays, the averrnent nf the learned jurist as to the want of chan- 
cery features therein is not proven. I find that there are passages wherein, in the 
most evident manner, chancery principles and the equity practice are recognized 
and extolled; and, further yet, that among passages tolerant or praiseful of the 
common law are also found passages wherein its principles and practice are held 
up to derision and even to scorn. And while it is true that phrases are not proofs, 
but only grounds whence inferences may be drawn, yet the citations I shall 
offer will be of as high a grade as those which are offered to support the 
propositicjns which I contest. Nor is the argument weakened in its application 
to the Baconian question by the establishment of the fact that the participation 
in the production of the Shakespeare Plays on the part of Bacon was the work 
of his early manhood. Coleridge well formulates the general experience when 
he says that "a young author's first work almost always bespeaks his recent 
pursuit." 

He is, at this early age, too, more conversant with the literature of his art; is 
more recently from the books and sometimes is observed to carry a head inflated 
with pride in that branch of the profession which his bent of mind has led him to 
favor. First let me recall some of those passages wherein derision and censure 
are visited upon the common law — the "biting" severity of its principles, the 
"hideous " deformity of its practice. 

The most superficial reader of these dramas will need no reminder of the 
satires conveyed in the conversation of Justices Dogberry and Shallow, Constable 
Elbow and the clowns in Twelftli N'iglit, and the more dignified broadsides of 
Wolsey and Queen Katharine, and Hamlet and Portia, and their interlocutors. 
As my reading goes, puerility, pedantry, corruption and chicanery, in legal 
practice, have found in all literature no denunciations so severe, no ridicule so 
effective. 

In /,v/ Henry IV., i, 2, the derision takes, in the mouth of Falstaff, the form of 
" the rusty curb of old Father Antic, the Law," the metaphor being that of a super- 
annuated clown who, with rusty methods, methods old and lacking polish, cheats 
the people out of the attainment of their cherished desires. 

When law can do no right. 

Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.' 

Since law itself is perfect wrong. 
How can the law forbid my tongue to curse ?* 
. The state of law is bond-slave to the law. ^ 

But in these nice, sharp quillets of the law, etc."* 
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power, 
Have checked theft. ^ 
The bloody book of law, etc.'' 

Crack the lawyer's voice. 
That he may nevermore false title plead.' 

My head to my good man's hat. 
These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn. ^ 
ParoUes, the lawyer in All's ]Vell tJiat Ends ll^ell, uses contemptuously 
the legal machinery applicable to English estates in describing how Dumain 
would convey away a title in fee-simple to his salvation; and, with the same 
■contemptuous reference to the same machinery, Mrs. Page describes the devil's 
titles to Falstaff. 

Now let us take up the praises of chancery. 

^ King- Jo/iii, iii, t. '^ lln'ii., iii, i. ''■ Richard II., ii, i. 

* jst Henry //., ii, 4. * Tiinoii 0/ Athens, iv, 3. ^Othello, iii, i. 

' J'iincii of Athens, v, i,. *" Lotcs I.alwr Lost, i, i. 



ji8 WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

And, first, I cite a passage which the learned jurist himself quotes. My 
italics will indicate my impression that, in his bent for common law, he has 
failed to give emphasis to the most important feature of the passage. 

In the corrupted currents of this world 
Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice, 
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above; 
There is no shuffling, tlierc the action lies 
In his true nature, and u<e ourselves compelVd 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults. 
To give in evidence.^ 

And, to pass to others : 

Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous; 
Virtue is choked with foul ambition. 
And charity chased hence by rancor's hand. 
Fell subornation is predominant. 
And equity exiled your highness' land.- 

What a trinity is here: Virtue, Charity, Equity! Opposed, too, to the hellish 
trio of ambition, rancor and subornation. 

A larger definition of equity jurisprudence could not well be had than that it is 
"strong authority looking into the blots and stains of right." 

King John. From whom hast thou this great commission. 
To draw mine answer from thine articles ? 

Kitig Philip. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts 

In any breast of strong authority. 

To look into the blots and stains of right. 

That judge hath made me guardian to this boy: 

Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong. 

And by whose help I mean to chastise it. 

This passage is also cited by the learned jurist, but it is only to remark upon 
the words warrant and impeach. It contains, as I have observed, the very definition 
of chancery jurisprudence, and besides employs terms technical in chancery prac- 
tice, comtnission articles and ans7oer. 

Themes which, in an especial manner, engage the intellect and the heart of the 
student and practitioner of chancery principles are "Charity," "Mercy," "Con- 
science." 

In contrast with the evasions and chicanery which are, in the Shakespeare Plays 
and elsewhere, the reproach of the practice at common law, chancery decides from 
considerations of what is right and just between man and man, ^-.r ,ei/uo et bono. 
Chancery jurisdiction enters the breast of the party himself, and there sets up its 
forum in his conscience. The interrogatories authorized by the chancery practice 
arraign and search that conscience, and, upon an oath binding upon it, "compel" 
the reluctant litigant, "even to the teeth and forehead of his faults, to give in evi- 
dence." 

Every man's conscience is a thousand swords.* 

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues.* 
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul !* 

Well, believe this. 
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs 
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword. 
The marshal's truncheon, nor the Judge's robe. 
Becomes them with one-half so good a grace 
As mercy does.^ 

> Hamlet, iii, 3. ^ RUkard 111., v, 2. » Ibid., i, 3. 

*2nd Henry 11., iii, i. ^ Ibid., v, 3. '' Measure for Measure, ii, 2, 



THE IVRITEK OF TIIE J'LAYS A LAWYER. 



The quality of mercy is not strained; 



119 



It is an attribute to God himself; 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 

When mercy seasons justice.' 

In addition to these citations, touching Shakespeare's use of the 
terms of the equity courts, I would quote the following from Judge 
Holmes: 

Indeed, it is clear that Portia's knowledge extended even to chancery practice., 
and continued to the end of the piece: 

Portia. Let us go in 

And charge us there upon int'rogatories, 
And we will answer all things faithfully.'^ 

The terms of chancery practice, charges., interrogatories and ans7ver, 
are dragged in by the heels despite the protests of the refractory 
meter. 

But passing from this point, I will add a few more extracts 
which bespeak the lawyer: 

Sir, for a quart d'e'cu he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inherit- 
ance of it; and cut the entail for all remainder.^ 

And again: 

If the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, 1 
think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. ^ 

And again: 

Time stays still with lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and 
term.^ 

Judge Holmes says:" 

Mr. Rushton cites the statute 16 Richard II., which was leveled against the 
Pope's usurpations of sovereignty in England, and enacted that " if any do bring 
any translation, process, sentence of excommunication, bulls, instruments, etc., 
within the realm, or receive them, thrv shall be put out of the King s protection, and 
their lands, tenements, goods and chattels forfeited to the King," and compares it with 
the speech of Suffolk in the play of Henry VIII., thus: 

Siiff. Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is, 

Because all those things you have done of late 

By your power legatine within this kingdom. 

Fall into the compass of a praemunire. 

That therefore such a writ be sued against you: 

To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements. 

Chattels and whatsoer'er, and to he 

Out of the King' s protection. This is my charge.' 

' Merchant p/ I'eiti'ce, iv, i. * .Merry Jl'i'z'es o/^ Windsor, iv, 2. 

"^Authorship of Sha/c., 3d ed., p. 637. ^ As i'ou Like It, iii, 2. 
' .-itTs Well that Ends Well, iv, 3. ^Authorship 0/ Sliak., 3d ed., p. 630. 

''Henry Vni.,n\,2. 



120 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE FL^AYS. 

It is manifest here, as Mr. Rushton thinks, that the author of 
the Plays was exactly acquainted with the very language of this old 
statute. 

This, then, is the syllogism which faces the Shakspereans: 

1. The man who wrote the Plays was a lawyer. 

2. William Shakspere was not a lawyer. 

3. Therefore, William Shakspere did not write the Plays. 

But if they shift their ground, and fall back upon the supposition 
that Shakspere might have been a lawyer's clerk during his pre- 
London residence in Stratford, they encounter these difficulties: 

1. There is not the slightest proof of this fact; and if it was 
true, proof could not fail to be forthcoming. 

2. There is not a scrap of tradition that points to it. 

3. Granting it to be possible, it would not explain away the 
difficulty. It would not have been sufficient for Shakspere to have 
passed a few months in a lawyer's office in Stratford in his youth. 
The man who wrote the Plays must have lived and breathed in 
an atmosphere of the law, which so completely filled his whole 
being that he could not speak of war or of peace, of business or of 
love, of sorrow or of pleasure, without scintillating forth legal 
expressions; and these he placed indifferently in the mouths of 
young and old, learned and unlearned, Greeks, Romans, Italians, 
Frenchmen, Scotchmen and Englishmen. 

Having, as I hope, demonstrated to the satisfacti(Mi of my read- 
ers that William Shakspere could not have written the Plays which 
go abroad in his name, we come to the second branch of my argu- 
ment, to-wit: that Francis Bacon, of St. Albans, son of Queen 
Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, Nicholas Bacon, was their real author. 



PART II. 



FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF 

THE PLAYS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FRAA'CIS BACON WAS A POET. 

Mount, eagle, to thy palace crystalline. 

Cyiiiheline, ?', 4. 

"\ T ZE come now to an important branch of this inquiry. 

* » It will be said: Granted that Francis Bacon possessed a 

great and mighty genius; granted that he was master of the vast 
learning revealed in the Plays; granted that he had the laborious 
industry necessary for their preparation; granted that they reveal 
a character and disposition, political, social and religious views, 
studies and investigations, identical with his own; granted that we 
are able to marshal a vast array of parallel thoughts, beliefs, 
expressions and even errors: the great question still remains, Was 
Francis Bacon a poet? Did he possess the imagination, the fancy, 
the sense of the beautiful — in other words, the divine faculty, the 
tine phrensy, the capacity to "give to airy nothing a local habita- 
tion and a name"? Was he not merely a philosopher, a dry and 
patient investigator of nature, a student of things, not words; of 
the useful, not the beautiful ? 

I. Thk Universal Mtnj). 

Ralph Waldo Emerson grasped the whole answer to this ques- 
tion when he said: "The true poet and the true philosopher are 
one." The complete mind (and we are reminded of Ulysses' appli- 
cation of the word to Achilles, "thou great and complete man") 

■enfolds in its orb all the realms of thought; it perceives not alone 

121 



122 



FKAXC/S BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE TLA VS. 



the nature of things, but the subtle light of beauty which irradiates 
them; it is able not only to trace the roots of facts into the dead, 
dull, material earth, but to follow the plant as it rises into the air 
and find in the flower thoughts too deep for tears. The purpose 
of things, the wherefore of things and the glory of things are all 
one to the God who made them, and to the great broad brain to 
which He has given power enough to comprehend them. But 
such minds are rare. Science tells us that the capacity of memory 
underlies those portions of the brain that perceive, but only a 
small share of them, and that if you excise a part of the brain, but 
not all of any particular department, the surrounding territory, 
which theretofore lay dormant, will now develop the faculty which 
was formerly exercised by the part removed. So it would seem that 
in all brains there is the capacity for universal intelligence, but there 
is lacking some power which forces it into action. The intellect lies 
like a mass of coals, heated, alive, but dormant; it needs the blow- 
pipe of genius to oxygenate and bring it to a white heat; and it 
rarely happens, in the history of mankind, that the whole brain is 
equally active, and the whole broad temple of the soul lighted up 
in every part. The world is full of men whose minds glow in 
spots. The hereditary blood-force, or power of nutrition, or pur- 
pose of God, or whatever it may be, is directed to a section of the 
intelligence, and it blazes forth in music, or poetry, or painting, or 
philosophy, or action, or oratory. And the world, as it cannot 
always behold the full orb of the sun, is delighted to look upon 
these stars, points of intense brilliancy, glorious with a fraction of 
the universal fire. 

II. JoHANN Wolfgang von Goethk. 

But occasionally there is born into the world a sun-like soul, the 
orb of whose brain, as Bacon says, "is concentric with the uni- 
verse." 

One of these was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great spirit 
of German literature. Like Bacon, he sprang from the common 
people; but, like him, not directly from them. His father was an 
imperial councilor, his mother was the daughter of the chief 
magistrate of the city. Like Bacon, he was thoroughly educated. 
Like him, his intellectual activity manifested itself in his early 



fRAXC/S BACOX WAS A POET. 1,3 

years. " Before he was ten years of age he wrote several languages, 
meditated poems, invented stories and had considerable familiarity 
with works of art." He began to write verse while yet at college. 
He associated with actors, free-thinkers and jovial companions. 
When twenty-three years of age he published his first play, Gotz von 
Berlichingen ; two years later he wrote The Sorrows of IVerthcr, 
and Clavigo, a drama. He also projected a drama on Mohammed 
and another on Prometheus, and began to revolve in his mind his 
greatest work, Faust. At the same time, while he was astonishing 
the world with his poetical and dramatic genius, he was engaged 
in a profound study of natural science. When forty-three years of 
age, he published his Bcitrdgc ziir Optik^ and his Farben/e/ire, in the 
latter of which he questioned the correctness of the Newtonian 
theory of colors. "He wrote also on the metamorphosis of plants, 
and on topics of comparative anatomy. In all these he displayed 
remarkable penetration and sagacity, and his remarks on the mor- 
phology of plants are now reckoned among the earlier enunciations 
of the theory of evolution." Faust was not finished until he was 
fifty-six years old. 

We see here, as in the case of Bacon, a vivacious, active youth, 
full of emotion and poetry; the dramatic faculty forcing itself out 
in great dramas; wide learning; some capacity for affairs of state 
(he was privy councilor of legation at the court of the Duke of 
Saxe-Weimar); and, running through all, profound studies in phil- 
osophy and natural science. Goethe was always in easy circum- 
stances. We have only to imagine him living in poverty, forced to 
maintain appearances, and yet to earn his living by his pen, with no 
avenue open to him but the play-house, and we have all the condi- 
tions, with added genius and philanthropic purposes, to make a 
Bacon. 

If the poetical works of Goethe had been published anony- 
mously, or in the name of some friend, it would have been difficult to 
persuade the world, in after years, that the philosopher and the poet 
were one. 

III. Had Bacon the Poetic Temperament ? 

First, let us inquire whether Bacon possessed the poetic tem- 
perament. 



124 J-A'.l.VC/S BACO.V THE AUTHOK OF THE PLAYS. 

Bacon says: 

For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of 
truth; as having a mind uinible and 7'ersatili' enough to catch the resemblances of 
things.' 

But, it may be asked, had he that fine sensibility which accom- 
panies genius; did he possess those delicate chords from which 
time and chance and nature draw their most exquisite melodies — 
those chords which, as Burns says, 

Vibrate sweetest pleasure, 
.and 

Thrill the deepest notes of woe ? 

The answer is plain. 

Macaulay speaks of Bacon's mind as 

The most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been bestowed on any 
•of the children of men.'- 

Montagu says: 

His imagination was fruitful and vivid. He was of a temperament of the most 
delicate sensibility: so excitable as to be affected by the slightest alterations in the 
atmosphere. ** 

And remember that neither Macaulay nor Montagu dreamed 
of the possibility of Bacon being the author of the Shakespeare 
Plays. 

Emerson calls the writer of the Plays, as revealed therein, " the 
most susceptible of human beings." 

Bacon's chaplain and biographer, Dr. Rawley, says: 

It may seem the moon had some principal place in the figure of his nativity, for 
the moon was never in her passion or eclipsed but he was surprised with a sudden 
fit of fainting; and that though he observed not nor took any previous knowledge 
of the eclipse thereof; and as soon as the eclipse ceased he was restored to his 
former strength agair. 

IV. Was he a Lover of Poetry ? 

Many things might be quoted from his writings to show his 
love of poetry and his profound study of it. He says it " elevates 
the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying of its own 
divine essence." . 

He even contemplated the improvement of poetry by the inven- 
tion of new measures or meters. He says: 

' Preface to The hiier/reiatioii of Natitre. * Essays^ Bacon, p. 263. 

■> Montagu's Li/e of Bacon. 



FHAA^CIS BACON WAS A POET. 125 

For though men with learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient meas- 
ures, yet in modern languages it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of 
verses as of dances; for a dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured 
speech.' 

The basis of Bacon's mind was the imagination. This is the 
eye of the soul. By it the spirit sees into the relations of objects. 
This it is gives penetration, for it surveys things as the eagle 
does — from above. And this is Bacon's metaphor. He says: 

Some writings have more of the ca;^lc in them than others.'^ 

It was this descending sight, commanding the whole landscape, 
that enabled him to make all knowledge his province, and out of 
this vast scope of view grew his philosophy. It was but a higher 
poetry. Montaigne says: 

Philosophy is no other than a falsified poesie. . . . Plato is but a poet unript.. 
All superhuman sciences make use of the poetic style. 

V. The Character of Bacon's Mind. 
Alfred H. Welsh says of Bacon: 

He belongs /o the realm of the imagination, of eloquence, of history, of jurispru- 
dence, of ethics, of metaphysics; the investigation of the powers and operations of 
the human mind. His writings have the gravity of prose, with the fervor and 
vividness of poetry. . . . Shakespeare, with greater variety, contains no more vig- 
orous or expressive condensations. 

Edmund Burke says: 

Who is there that, hearing the name of Bacon, does not instantly recognize 
everything of genius the most profound, of literature the most extensive, of dis- 
covery the most penetrating, of observation of human life the most distinguishing 
and refined ? 

Macaulay says: 

The poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon's mind, but not, like his wit, so 
powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason, and to tyrannize over the 
whole man. No imagination was ever at once so strong and so thoroughly subju- 
gated. It never stirred but at a signal from good sense; it stopped at the first 
check of good sense. Yet, though disciplined to such obedience, it gave noble 
proofs of its vigor. In truth, much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary world, 
amidst things as strange as any that are described in the Arabian tales.* 

Montagu says: 

His mind, like the sun, had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in 
motion, no quiet but in activity; it did not so pjoperly apprehend as irradiate the 
object. . . . His understanding could almost pierce into future contingents, his 

^ A dvancetnent 0/ Learning:, hook. 11. ^Ibid. ^ Essays, Bacon, p. 2Z$, 



126 /-KANCIS BACO.V THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 

conjectures improving even to prophecy; he saw consequences yet dormant in 
their principles, and effects yet unborn in the womb of their causes.' 

Macaulay speaks of his 

Compactness of expression and richness of fancy.- 

Addison said of his prayer, composed in the midst of his afflic- 
tions, in 1621 : 

For elevation of thought and greatness of expression, it seems rather the 
devotion of an angel than a man."* 

Fowler says: 

His utterances are not infrequently marked with a grandeur and solemnity of 
tone, a majesty of diction, which renders it impossible to forget, and difficult even 
to criticise them. . . . There is no author, unless it be Shakespeare, who is so 
easily remembered or so frequently quoted. . . . The terse and burning words 
issuing from the lips of an irresistible commander.'* 

R. W. Church speaks of 

The bright torch of his incorrigible imaginativeness.'^ . . . He was a genius 
second only to Shakespeare. . . . He liked to enter into the humors of a court; 
to devote brilliant imagination and affluence of invention to devising a pageant 
which should throw all others into the shade.* 

That he was master of the dramatic faculty will be inade plain 
to any one who reads that interesting dialogue entitled An Adver- 
tisement Touching an Holy War, and observes the skill with which 
the conversation is carried on, and the separate characters of the 
parties maintained. 

VI. Did Bacon Claim to be a Poet? 

Let us next ask ourselves this question: Did Bacon claim to. 
be a poet ? 

Certainly. We have among his acknowledged works a series of 
translations, the Psalms of David, made in his old age, and com- 
posed upon a sick-bed. 

Mr. Spedding says of these translations: 

It has been usual to speak of them as a ridiculous failure; a censure in which I 
cannot concur. ... I should myself infer from this sample that Bacon had all the 
natural faculties which a poet wants: a fine ear for meter, a fine feeling for imagi- 
native effect in words, and a vein of poetic passion. . . . The thought could not 
well be fitted vith imagery, words and rhythm more apt and imaginative; and 
there is a tenderness of expression which comes manifestly out of a heart in sensi- 
tive sympathy with nature. The heroic couplet could hardly do its work better in 

' Montagu's Life of Bacon. ^ Fowler's Bacon, p. 57. ' Francis Bacon, p. 208. 

"Essays, Bacon, p. 249. ' Ibid., p. 202. "Ibid., p. 214. 



FRANCIS BACON WAS A POET. 



127 



the hands of Dryden. The truth is that Bacon was not without the fine phrensy of 
the poet.' 

I quote a few passages from these Psalms, selected at random; 

There do the stately ships plough up the floods; 
The greater navies look like walking woods. 

This reminds us of the walking wood in Macbeth : 

As I did stand my watch upon the hill, 

I looked toward Birnam, and, anon, methought, 

The wood began to move.-' 

He speaks of 

The sappy cedars, tall like stately towers. 
Again; 

The vales their hollow bosoms opened plain, 
The streams ran trembling down the vales again. 

He speaks of the birds — 

Stroking the gentle air with pleasant notes. 
He describes life as 

This bubble light, this vapor of our breath. 



He says; 
Again; 



So that, with present griefs and future fears, 
Our eyes burst forth into a stream of tears. 

Why should there be such turmoil and such strife. 
To spin in length this feeble line of life? 



It must be remembered, in extenuation of any defects in these 
translations, that they were the work of sickness and old age, when 
his powers were shrunken. They were written in his sixty-fifth 
year — one year before his death. We will see that they are not 
equal in scope and vigor even to his prose writings. He himself 
noted this difference between youth and age. 

He, says; 

There is a youth in thoughts as well as in age; and yet the invention of young 
men is more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into their minds better, 
and as it were more divinely.* 

VII. Thk Exaltations of Genius. 

Neither can we judge what great things genius can do in 
the blessed moments of its highest exaltation by the beggarly 
dregs of daily life. Lord Byron said, in a letter to Tom 
Moore; 

' Works, vii, 269. 2 Macbeth, v, 4. ^ Essay Of Youth and Age. 



128 /-'A'AXC/S J^.iro.V THE AUTJWK OF TJJE PLAYS. 

A man's poetry has no more to do with the every-day individual than the inspi- 
ration with the Pythoness, when removed from the tripod. 

Richard Grant White ridicules "the great inherent absurdity — 
the unlikeness of Bacon's mind and style to those of the writer of 
the Plays," to which William D. O'Connor well replies: 

(^f all fudge ever written this is the sheerest. Methinks I see a critic with his 
sagacious right eye fixed upon the long loping alexandrines of Richelieu, and his 
sagacious left eye fixed upon Richelieu's Maxims of Slate, oracularly deciding from 
the unlikeness of mind and style that the great Cardinal could ncjt have written the 
tragi-comedy of Mirame ! Could he inform us (I will offer the most favorable 
instance possible) what likeness of "mind and style" he could detect between Sir 
William Blackstone's charming verses, A Lawyers Farcwe/i to /lis A/itse, and the 
same Sir William Blackstone's Comiiteiitaries? What likeness of "mind and style" 
could he establish between the famous treatise by Grotius, on The Rights of Peace 
a)id War, and the stately tragedy by Grotius entitled Adam in Exile ? Where is the 
identity of "mind and style" between Sir Walter Raleigh's dry-as-dust Cabinet 
Coiiiiei/ and Sir Walter Raleigh's magnificent and ringing poem, 'P/ie Sou/' s Errand? 
What likeness of "mind and style" could he find between Coleridge's Aids to Re- 
flection and the unearthly melody and magian imagery of Coleridge's Kuhla Khan? 
What likeness of "mind and style " exists between the exquisite riant grace, light- 
ness and Watteau-color of Milton's Allegro, the gracious andante movement and 
sweet cloistral imagery of Milton's Penserosa, and the Telraehordon, or the A reo- 
pagitica of the same John Milton? Are the solemn, rolling harmonies of Paradise 
Lost one in "mind and style" with the trip-hammer crash of the reply to Salmasius 
by Cromwell's Latin secretary? Could the most astute reviewer discover likeness 
of "mind and style " between Peregrine Pickle ox Roderick Pandoiii and the noble 
and majestic passion of the Ode to Independence ? — 

Thy spirit. Independence, let me share, 

Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye ! 
Thy steps I'll follow with my bosom bare. 

Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.' 

VIII. Bacon's Court Mask. 

Let us go a step farther and prove that Bacon wrote verse, and 
mastered the difficulties of rhythm and rhyme, in other productions 
besides the translation of a few psalms. 

Messrs. Spedding and Dixon brought to light, in their re- 
searches, two fragments of a court mask which is believed to be 
unquestionably Bacon's, and in it, as an oracle, occur these 
verses, spoken of a blind Indian boy. The queen, of course, 
is Elizabeth: 

Seated between the Old World and the New, 

A land there is no other land may touch. 
Where reigns a queen in peace and honor true; 

Stories or fables do describe no such. 

' Hamtet's Note Book, p. 56, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York. 



FJ^ANCIS BACON JVAS A POET. 129 

Never did Atlas such a burden bear, 

As she in holding up the world opprest; 
Supplying with her virtue everywhere 

Weakness of friends, errors of servants best. 
No nation breeds a warmer blood for war, 

And yet she calms them by her majesty; 
No age hath ever wits refined so far, 

And yet she calms them by her policy: 
To her thy son must make his sacrifice 
If he will have the moniiitg of his eyes. 

Certainly this exhibits full possession of the powers requisite in 
metrical composition, while the closing' expression for restoration 
from blindness, " the morning of his eyes," is eminently poetical. 

IX. Other Verses bv Bacon. 

There are also some other verses which go under the name of 
Bacon. They are worthy of the pen that wrote Shakespeare: 

Mr. Spedding publishes in his great edition of Bacon's JVorks,^ 
a poem, which he calls "a remarkable performance." It is a para- 
phrase of a Greek epigram, attributed by some to Poseidippus, by 
others to Plato, the comic poet, and by others to Crates, the cynic. 
In 1629, only three years after Bacon's death, Thomas Farnaby, a 
contemporary and scholar, published a collection of Greek epigrams. 
After giving the epigram in question, with its Latin translation on 
the opposite page, he adds: '■''Hue elegante }ii V. C. L. Domini Vcriilamii 
-apwdta-j adjicere adliibuitj" and then prints the English lines below 
(the only English in the book), with a translation of his own oppo- 
site in rhyming Greek. A copy of the English lines was also found 
among Sir Henry Wotton's papers, with the name Francis Lord 
Bacon at the bottom. Spedding says, " Farnaby's evidence is direct 
and strong," and he expresses the opiiiion that the internal evi- 
dence is in favor of the poem being the work of Bacon. Spedding 
says: 

The English lines which follow are not meant for a translation, and can hardly 
be called a paraphrase. They are rather another poem on the same subject and 
with the same sentiment; and though the topics are mostly the same, the treatment 
of them is very difTerent. The merit of the original consists almost entirely in its 
compactness; there being no special felicity in the expression, or music in the 
meter. In the English, compactness is not aimed at, and a tone of plaintive 
melody is imparted, which is due chiefly to the metrical arrangement, and ha:s. 
something very pathetic in it to the ear. 

' Vol. xiv, p. 115, Boston ed. 



ijo FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THF PLAYS. 

The world's a bubble, and the life of man 

Less than a span; 
In his conception wretched, from the womb 

So to the tomb; 
Cursed from his cradle and brought up to years 

With cares and fears: 
Who, then, to frail mortality shall trust. 
But limns the water, or but writes in dust. 

Yet, whilst with sorrow here we live opprest, 

What life is best? 
Courts are but only superficial schools. 

To dandle fools; 
The rural parts are turned into a den 

Of savage men; 
And Where's the city from foul vice so free 
But may be termed the worst of all the three ? 

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed. 

Or pains his head. 
Those that live single take it for a curse. 

Or do things worse. 
Some would have children; those that have them moan, 

Or wish them gone. 
What is it, then, to have or have no wife. 
But single thraldom or a double strife? 

Our own affections still at home to please 

Is a disease: 
To cross the seas to any foreign soil. 

Perils and toil. 
Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease. 

We're worse in peace. 
What then remains, but that we still should cry 
Not to be born, or, being born, to die? 

I differ with Mr. Spedding. These verses are exceedingly terse 
and compact. They exhibit a complete mastery over rhythm and 
rhyme. Those two lines, — 

Who then to frail mortality shall trust, 

But limns the water, or but writes in dust, — 

are worthy of any writer in the language. We are reminded of the 
pathetic utterance of poor Keats, who requested that his friends 
should place upon his tomb the words: 

Here lies one whose name was writ in water. 
Mr. Spedding also gives us ' the following lines, inferior to the 
above, found in a volume of manuscript collections now in the 
British Museum: 

' Vol. ,\iv, p. 114. 



FRANCIS BACOX II AS A POET. 131 

Verses Made ky Mr. Franxis Bacon. 

The man of life upright, whose guiltless heart is free 

From all dishonest deeds and thoughts of vanity; 

The man whose silent days in harmless joys are spent, 

Whom hopes cannot delude, nor fortune discontent: 

That man needs neither towers, nor armor for defense, 

Nor secret vaults to fly from thunder's violence; 

He only can behold with unaffrighted eyes 

The horrors of the deep and terrors of the skies; 

Thus scorning all the care that Fate or Fortune brings, 

He makes the Heaven his book, his wisdom heavenly things; 

Good thoughts his only friends, his life a well-spent age, 

The earth his sober inn, — a quiet pilgrimage. 

Mrs. Pott' quotes a poem entitled The Retired Courtier, from 
Dowland's First Book of Songs, published 1600; and she gives many 
very good reasons for believing that it was from the pen of Bacon. 
Certain it is that the verses are of extraordinary excellence, and 
were claimed by no one else, and they afford numerous parallels 
with the Plays: 

The Retired Courtier. 

1. 

His golden locks hath Time to silver turned; 

O time too swift ! O swiftness never ceasing ! 
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned. 

But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing. 
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen. 
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. 

II. 

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees. 

And lovers' sonnets turn to holy psalms. 
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees. 

And feed on prayers which are age's alms; 
But though from court to cottage he depart. 
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart. 

III. 
And when he saddest sits in homely cell. 

He'll teach his swains this carol for a song: 
Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well ! 

Curst be the soul that thinks her any wrong ! 
Goddess, allow this aged man his right, 
To be your beadsman now that was your knight. 

What a beautiful and poetical conception is that: 

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees ! 

^ I'romus, appendix D, p. 528. 



1-2 /■A'A.VC/S BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

If Bacon did not write this, who was the unknown poet to- 
whom it can be ascribed ? 

His saint is sure of his unspotted heart, 

says the poem. 

A pure, unspotted heart, 
says Shakespeare.' 

Allow this aged man his right 
To lie your beadsman now. 

Says Bacon to Lord Burleigh (1597): 

I will still he your bcadstnan. 

X. Bacon's Concealed Writings. 

Let us next inquire: Were these extracts all of Bacon's poetical 
works ? Is there any evidence that he was the author of any con- 
cealed writings ? 

Yes. Mrs. Pott says: 

There are times noted by Mr. Spedding when Bacon wrote with closed doors' 
and when the subject of his studies is doubtful; and there is one long vacation of 
which the same careful biographer remarks that he cannot tell what work the inde- 
fatigable student produced during those months, for that he knows of none 
whose date corresponds with the period. Perhaps it was at such a time Bacon 
took recreation in the form in which he recommended it to others, not by 
idleness, but by bending the bow in an opposite direction; for he says: " I have 
found now twice, upon amendment of my fortunes, disposition to melancholy and 
distaste, especially the same happening against the long vacation, when company 
failed and business both." The same distaste to what he in a letter calls the 
"dead vacation" is seen in As You Like Lt, act iii, scene 2: 

Who stays it [time] still withal ? 
With lawyers in the vacation. 

Bacon says in a letter to Tobie Matthew: 

I have sent you some copies of my book of the Advancement, which you 
desired; and a little work of mv recreation, which you desired not. My Lnstauratioti 
I reserve for conference; it sleeps not. Those works of the alphabet are in my 
opinion of less use to you where you now are than at Paris. [1607-g.] 

Mr. Spedding cannot guess what those works of the alphabet 
may have been, unless they referred to Bacon's experiments at. 
cipher-writing. 

When he has become Sir Francis, Bacon writes to Tobie Matthew: 

I send my desire to you in this letter that you will take care not to lea7'e the 7vriting 
which I left with you last 'with any man so long that he may be able to take a copy of it. 

And that this was evidently some composition of his own ap- 
pears by the fact that he asks his friend's criticism upon it, and to 

- J st Henry I 'I.. ■", 4. 



/■A'A.VCJ.S HA COX IV AS A POET. 133 

" point out where I do perhaps indonnisccrc, or where I do iu- 
diilgere genio; or where, in fine, I give any manner of disadvantage 
to myself." 

Does this mean that he fears he will reveal himself by his 
style ? 

Asfain, he writes to the same friend: 

You Conceive ari.e;ht, that in this and the other, you have commission to impart 
and communicate them to others, according to your discretion; other matters I 
ivrite not of} 

What was the meaning of all this mystery ? 

Bacon refers to some tmnamed work which he sends to his 

friend as " a work of his recreation." And in TIic Advance?>ient of 

Learning' he says : 

As for poesy, it is rather a pleasute or play of the imagination than a work or 
duty thereof. 

And in Macbeth we have: 

The labor we delight in physics pain.' 

And in Antony and Cleopatra we have: 

The business that we love, we rise betimes 
And go to it with delight. ■* 

Bacon in his Apology says: 

It happened, a little before that time, that her Majesty had a purpose to dine 
at Twickenham Park, at which time I had (although I profess not to be a poet) 
prepared a sonnet directly tending and alluding to draw on her Majesty's recon- 
cilement to my Lord, which I remember I also showed to a great person. 

Mr. William Thompson' calls attention to the fact that this 
sonnet has never been found among Bacon's papers, or elsewhere, 
and suggests that this is one of the sonnets that go under the name 
of Shakespeare. 

When James I., after the death of Elizabeth, was about to come 
to England, to assume the crown. Master John Davis, afterward 
Sir John Davis, the poet and courtier, went to meet him, where- 
upon Bacon sent after him this significant letter: 

Master Da7>is: 

Though you went on the sudden, yet you could not go before you had spoken 
with yourself to the purpose which I will now write. And, therefore, I know it 
shall be altogether needless, save that I meant to show you that I was not asleep. 

1 Letter to Tobie Matthew, 1609. ^Bonkii. ^ ^^t ij scene 3. ■< Act iv, scene 4. 

5 The Renascene Drama: or, History Made I'isible. By William Thompson, F.R.C.S., F.L.S. 
Melbourne, 1880. 



134 



FRANCIS BACON THE ACTHOK OF 7UE PLAYS. 



Briefly, I commend myself to your love and the well-usin^f of my name, as well in 
repressing and answering for me, if there be any biting or nibbling at it, in that 
place; as by imprinting a good conceit and opinion of me, chiefly in the King (of 
whose favor I make myself comfortable assurance), and otherwise in that court. 
And, not only so, but generally to perform to me all the good offices which the 
vivacity of your wit can suggest to your mind, to be performed to one with whose 
affection you have so great sympathy, and in whose fortune you have so great 
interest. So desiring yon to be good to all concealed poets, I continue, etc. 

This letter is very significant. It is addressed to a poet; it 
anticipates that there will be "biting and nibbling" at his good 
name; it begs the friendly services of Davis; and it concludes by 
asking him to be good "A; all concealed poets.'" This plainly refers to 
himself. The whole context shows it. We know that Bacon was a 
poet. Here he admits that he is a concealed poet. That is to say, 
that he was the author of poetical writings which he does not 
acknowledge — "which go about in others' names." 

This pregnant admission half proves my case; for if the "con- 
cealed" poetical writings were not the Shakespeare Plays, what 
were they ? Are there any other poetical writings in that age 
whose authorship is questioned ? If so, what are they ? 

And we have another proof of this in a letter of Sir Tobie 
Matthew to Bacon, which, being addressed to him as the Viscount 
St. Albans, must necessarily have been written subsequent to the 
27th January, 1621, when his Lordship was invested with that title. 
Judge Holmes says: 

It appears to be in answer to a letter from Lord Bacon, dated "the gth of 
April " (year not given), accompanying some great and noble token of his " Lord- 
ship's favor," which was in all probability a newly printed book; for Bacon, as we 
know from the letters, was in the habit of sending to Mr. Matthew a copy of his 
books as they were published. . . . Neither is there anything in the way of the 
supposition that this date may actually have been the 9th of April, 1623; and there 
was no publication of any work of Bacon, during that spring, which he would be 
sending to Mr. Matthew unless it were precisely this Folio of 1623.' 

The postscript is as follows: 

P. S. The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side 
of the sea, is of your Lordship's name, THOUGH HE BE known by ANOTHER. 

If we suppose that "the great and noble token " was the Shake- 
speare Folio of 1623, we can understand this. If Tobie Matthew, 
Bacon's intimate friend and correspondent, his "other self" as he 
calls him, to whom he wrote about the mysterious works of the 

1 .AntJiorsliip of Shak., p. 172. 



FRANCIS BACON WAS A POET. 



'35 



alphabet, diXid to whom ht* sent "the works of his recreation" (not to 
be left where any one could take a copy of them) — if Tobie Mat- 
thew knew that "the great and noble token " was written by "the 
concealed poet," Bacon, and if he desired, as part of his thanks, to 
compliment him upon the mighty genius manifested in it, what is 
more natural than that he should allude to the hidden secret in the 
way he does? He says, in effect, writing from abroad: "Thanks 
for the Folio. Your Lordship is the greatest wit of our nation, 
and of this side of the sea (that is, in all Europe), though your 
noblest work is published under another name." 
In another letter Tobie Matthew writes him: 

I shall give you " Measure for AIeasttrt\'^ 

He was familiar with the Plays of Shakespeare. After Shake- 
speare's death, he wrote a letter, in which he refers to Falstaff as 
the author of a speech which he quotes. And in 1598 he writes to 
Dudley Carleton, again quoting from Falstaff: "Well, honour 
pricks them on, and the world thinckes that honour will quickly 
prick them off againe." 

That there were concealed poets in London among the gentlemen 
scholars, and the lawyers in the inns of court, we know in another 
way: In Webb's Discourse of Poetry, published in 1586, after enumer- 
ating the writers of the day, Whetstone, Munday, etc., he adds: 

I am humbly to desire pardon of the learned company oi gcntletuen scholars and 
students of the universities and inns of court, if I omit their several commenda- 
tions in this place, which I know a great number of them have worthily deserved, 
in niaiiy rare devices and singular inventions of poetry ; for neither hath it been my 
good hap to have seen all which I have heard of, neither is my abiding in such 
place where I can with facility get knowledge of their works.' 

In Spenser's Tcares of the Muses, printed in 1591, there is a pass- 
age beginning: 

And he the man whom Nature's self had made 

To mock her selfe and Truth to imitate, 
With kindly counter under mimic shade. 

Our pleasant Willy, ah, is dead of late ! 

This has been held to refer to Shakspere, chiefly, it would 
seem, because of the name Willy. " But," says Richard Grant 
White,^ "'Willy,' like 'shepherd,' was not uncommonly used 
merely to mean a poet, and was distinctly applied to Sir Philip 

' Knight, Sliak. Bingrn/'hy, p. 328. ^ Life and Genius of Shcxk., p. 95. 



136 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Sidney, in an eclogue preserved in Davidson's Poetical Rhapsody., 
published in 1602. And The Teares of the Muses had certainly been 
written before 1590, when Shakspere could not have arisen to 
the position assigned, by the first poet of the age, to the subject of 
this passage, and probably before 1580, when Shakspere was a boy 
of sixteen at Stratford." 

And if these lines referred to Shakspere, what is meant by the 
words, "with kindly counter under mimic shade"? Certainly 
Shakspere never appeared under any mimic, shade or disguise; 
while, if the lines referred to Bacon, old enough even in 1580 to be 
a poet and a friend of Spenser, there might be an allusion here to 
his use of some play-actor's name as a disguise for his productions, 
just as we find him in the sonnets referring to himself as 

Keeping invention in a noted loccd 

Till every word does almost sjteak my name. 

But I shall discuss this matter more at length hereafter. 
And Bacon, in a prayer made while Lord Chancellor, refers to 
the same weed or disguise: 

The state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine 
eyes; I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart. I have, though in a despised 
weed, procured the good of all men. 

We will see hereafter that the purpose of the Plays was the 
good of all men. 

And we find in the following sentence proof that Bacon used 
the word weed to signify a disguise: 

This fellow, when Perkin took sanctuary, chose rather to take a holy habit 
than a holy place, and clad himself like a hermit, and in that tcv^;/ wandered about 
the country until he was discovered and taken.' 

We find many evidences that Bacon's pursuits were poetical. 
He writes to the Earl of Essex on one occasion: 

Desiring your good Lordship, nevertheless, not to conceive out of this my dili- 
gence in soliciting this matter, that I am either much in appetite or much in hope. 
For, as for appetite, the waters of Parnassus are not like the waters of the Spa, 
that give a stomach, but rather they quench appetite and desires. 

And when, after Essex was released from confinement in 1600, 
Bacon wrote him a congratulatory letter, Essex replied, evidently 
somewhat angry at him, as follows; 

^ History 0/ Henry 1'//. 



FKANC/S BACON WAS A POET. 



137 



I can neither expound nor censure your late actions, being ignorant of them all 
save one, and having directed my sight inward only to examine myself. ... I am 
a stranger to all poetical conceits, or else / should say someivhat of your poetical 
example, ' 

And we have many proofs that Bacon was engaged in some 

studies which absorbed him to the exclusion of law and politics. 

He says: 

I do confess, since I was of any understanding, my mind hath, in effect, been 
absent from that I have done, and in absence errors are committed, which I do 
willingly acknowledge; and amongst the rest this great one which led the rest: that 
knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to play a part, I 
have led my life in civil causes, for which I was not very fit by nature, and more 
unfit by the preoccupation of luy iiiind.- 

And he makes this apology for the failure of his life: 

This I speak to posterity, not out of ostentation, but because I judge it may 
somewhat import the dignity of learning, to have a man born for letters rather than 
anything else, who should by a certain fatality, and against the bent of his own 
genius, be compelled into active life.^ 

XI. The Imagination Revealed in Bacon's Acknowledged 

Writings. 

But, after all, the best evidence of the fact that Bacon possessed 
the imagination, the fancy and the wit necessary for the pro- 
duction of the Plays, must be found in his acknowledged writings. 

1 assert, first, that he had all the fancy, vivacity and sprightli- 
ness of mind necessary for the task. 

Let me give a few proofs of this. He says: 

Extreme self-lovers will set a man's house on fire, though it were but to roast 
their eggs.'* 

Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread.^ 

You have built an ark to save learning from deluge." 

He calls the great conquerors of history " the troublers of the 
world; " he speaks of " the tempest of human life." 
He says: 

A full heart is like a full pen; it can hardly make any distinguished work.'' 
He says: 

For as statues and pictures are dumb histories, so histories are speaking pict- 

ures.^ 

' Letter from Esse.\ to Bacon, 1600. ^ Essay Of Seditions. 

2 Letter to Sir Thomas Bodley. " Letter to Sir Thomas Bodlev. 
^Advancement (1/ Learning, viii, 3. '' Letter to the King. 

■" Coll. Scne. * Letter to the Chancellor, 



138 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

In so grave and abstract a matter as the dedication of The 
Arguments of Lmc\ he says: 

For the reasons of municipal laws, severed from the grounds of nature, man- 
ners and policy, are like wall-flowers, which, though they grow high upon the 
crests of states, yet have no deep roots. 

How figurative, how poetical is this! Not only the municipal 
laws are compared to wall-flowers, but they grow upon the crests 
of states ! 

He says also: 

Fame hath swift swings, especially that which hath black feathers.' 

Meaning, by black feathers, slanders. 

He also says: 

For, though your Lordship's fortunes be above the thunder and storms of 
inferior regions, yet, nevertheless, to hear the wind and not to feel it, will make 
one sleep the better. - 

He says: 

Myself have ridden at anchor all your Grace's absence, and my cables are now 
quite worn.'' 

We also find this: 

The great labor was to get entrance into the business; but now the portcullis 
is drav/n up.* 

He says: 

Hereupon presently came forth swarms and volleys of libels, which are the 
gusts of liberty of speech restrained, and the females of sedition, containing bitter 
invectives and slanders.' 

Again: 

I shall perhaps, before my death, have rendered the age a light unto posterity, 
by kindling this new torch amid the darkness of philosophy.* 

Again: 

Time, like a river, hath brought down all that was light and inflated, and hath 
sunk what was weighty and solid.'' 

Again: 

1 ask for a full pardon, that I may Jif out of a cloud.'' 

Again: 

As for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics.^ 

' Letter to Sir George Villiers, 1615. ' Hiatory of Henry \'II. 

2 Letter to Buckingham, April, 1623. « Letter to King James. 

' Letter to Buckingham, October 12, 1623. ' Preface to Great Instauration. 

* Letter to Buckingham, i6iq. ** Letter to Buckingham, Novemtoer 25, 1625, 

" . XJ-.'iiiUfiuoit if I.i'ariiiiii;, bocjk ii. 



FRANCIS BACON WAS A POET. 139 

He says: 

Words are the footsteps and prints of reason.' 
Again; 

Hope is a leaf-joy, which may be beaten out to a great extension, like gold.* 

Again: 

The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock whereupon both 
this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast away.^ 

Again he speaks of 

The Georgics of the mind, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof.* 

Again: 

Such men are, as it were, the very suitors and lovers of fables.^ 

This reminds us of Shakespeare: 

The very beadle to a humorous sigh.* 

Speaking of the then recent voyages in which the earth was 

circumnavigated, he uses this poetical expression: 

Memorable voyages, after the manner of heaven, about the globe of the earth.'' 

Did ever grave geograplier tise such a simile as this ? 

He says: 

Industrious persons ... do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of 

time.* 

Also: 

Remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.' 

Again: 

Times answerable, like waters after a tempest, full of working and swelling. "^' 

He says: 

The corrupter sort of politicians . . . thrust themselves into the center of the 
world, as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes; never caring, in all 
tempests, what becomes of the ship of state, so they may saT'c themselves in the 
eock-boat of their own fortune .^^ 

Again; 

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set. " 
He says: 

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the 
world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that 
joins to them.'^ 

' Advancement of Learning, book ii. ' Advancement cf Learning, book ii. 

s History of Life and Deatli. * Ibid. 
^Advancement of Learning, book ii. ' Ibid. 

«Ibid. '"Ibid., book ii. 

^ Novum Organum, book ii. " Ibid., book i. 

^Love's Labor Lost, iii, 1. " Essay Of Beauty. 

'3 Essay Of Goodness. 



I40 FJ^AA'C/S BACO.y THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

He says; 

It is sport to see a bold fellow out of countenance, for that puts his face into a 
most shrunken and wooden posture.' 

Again: 

Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds — they ever fly by twi- 
light.2 

Again: 

Some men's behavior is like a verse, wherein every syllable is measured.* 

He says: 

Certainly there be whose fortunes are like Homer's verses, that have a slide 
and an easiness more than the verses of other poets. "* 

Speaking of those studies that come home to the hearts of 

men, or, to use his phrase, " their business and bosoms," he says: 

So men generally take well knowledges that are drenched in fiesh and blood. ^ 

He says: 

Duty, though my state lie buried in the sands, and my favors be cast upon the 
waters, and my honors be committed to the wind, yet standeth surely built upon 
the rock, and hath been, and ever shall be, unforced and unattempted.'* 

Speaking of the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy, Bacon says: 

After such time . . . she began to cast with herself /)■(?;;/ 7vhat coast this blazing 
star should first appear, and at what time it must be upoi the horizon of Ireland, for 
there had been the like meteor strong influence before. The time of the apparition to 
be when the King should be engaged into a war with France.'' 

Again he says: 

Honor that is gained and broken upon another hath the quickest reflection, 
like dia/noiuls cut with facets.^ 

Again: 

In fame of learning the flight will be slow without some feathers of ostenta- 
tion.** 

Again: 

Pope Alexander . . . was desirous to trouble the waters in Italy, that he might 
fish the better; casting the net not out of St. Peter's, but out of Borgia's bark."* 

He uses this expression: • 

Their preposterous, fantastic and hypothetical philosophies which have led 
experience captive." 

' Essay O/ Goodness. ^ Letter written in Essex' name to the Queen, 1600. 

* Essay O/ Stcspicion. ' History of Henry VH. 

3 Essay 0/ Praise. ^ Essay Of Honor and Reputation. 

* Essay Of Forttinc. ° Essay 0/ Vain Glory. 
^ AdTanceineiit 0/ Learning, book ii. '" History 0/ Henry VH. 

' ' Novum Organuin. 



J'Vk'AXC/S BACOiV ll'AS A I'OKT. 



141 



Speaking again of the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy, he expresses 
it in tills most figurative manner: 

At this time the King began to be haunted with spirits, by the magic and curi- 
ous arts of the Lady Margaret, who raised up the ghost of Richard, Duke of York, 
second son to King Edward the Fourth, to walk and vex the King.' 

Again: 

Every giddy-headed humor keeps, in a manner, revel-rout in false religions. - 

Again: 

It is the extremity of evil when mercy is not suffered to have commerce with 
misery.^ 

When he wotild say tliat the circumstances were favorable for 
the inauguration of the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy, he ptits it thus: 

Now did the sign reign, and the constellation was come, under which Perkin 
should appear.^ 

[We find the Duke telling Viola: 

I know thy constellation is right apt 
For this affair.^] 
And again: 

But all this upon the French King's part was but a trick, the better to bow 
King Henry to peace. And therefore upon the first grain of incense that was sac- 
rificed upon the altar of peace, at Roloign, Perkin was smoked away.'' 

When Bacon would say that King Henry VII. used his wars as 
a means and excuse to fill his treasury, he expresses it in this pict- 
uresque fashion; 

His wars were always to him as a mine of treasure of a strange kind of ore; 
iron at the top and gold and silver at the bottom.'' 

Again he says: 

And Perkin, for a perfuvie he/ore him as He went, caused to be published a 
proclamation.* 

Again: 

So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the 
earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls except) will not seem much other 
than an ant-hill, where, as some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and 
some go empty, and all — to and fro — a little heap of dust.' 

He uses this expression after his downfall: 

Here I live upon the sword-point of a sharp air.'" 

1 History of Henry J '//. ' History 0/ Henry I '//. 

^ Wisdom of tlic A ncicnts — Dionysius. ' Ibid. 

^ Ibid. — Diojjiedes. " Ibid. 

^ History of Henry I '//. '•* A dvaiicemcnt of Learning, book i.- 

s T^velfth Night, i, 4. " Petition to the House of Lords. 



14^ 



FRANCIS B A CO IV THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 



Alluding to Perkin Warbeck, he says: 

But it was ordained that this winding-ivy of a Plantagenet should kill the true 
tree itself.' 

Again: 

It was a race often dipped in their own blood.' 

Speaking of the crowds of rabble who followed Perkin Warbeck 

after his capture, to mock and deride him. Bacon uses this poetical 

figure: 

They flocked about him as he went along: that one might know afar off where 
the owl was by the flight of birds.' 

After his downfall he writes: 

I desire to do, for the little time God shall send me life, like the merchants of 
London, which, when they give over trade, lay out their money upon land. So 
being freed from civil business, I lay forth my poor talent upon those things which 
may be perpetual.* 

Again: 

And as in the tides of people once up, there want not commonly stirring winds 
to make them more rough. ^ 

Speaking of Henry VII., after he had overcome the rebellions 

of Simnell and Warbeck, Bacon says: 

This year also, though the King was no more haunted with sprites, for that by 
the sprinkling, partly of blood, and partly of water, he had chased them away.^ 

Again he says: 

As if one were to employ himself poring over the dissection of the dead car- 
cass of nature, rather than to set himself to ascertain the powers and properties of 
living nature.'' 

He says: 

Nothing appears omitted for preparing the senses to inform the understand- 
ing, and we shall no longer dance, as it were, within the narrow circles of the 
enchanter, but extend our march around the confines of the worW itself.* 

Again: 

A fellow that thinks with his magistrality and goosequill to give laws and 
menages to crowns and scepters.* 

This is rather a long list of examples to prove that Bacon pos- 
sessed in a preeminent degree fancy, vivacity and imagination, but 
I feel that no man can say his time is wasted in reading such a 
catalogue of gems. 

' History of Henry V'U. * Letter to the King, Oct. 8, 1621. ''Nature of Things. 

'^ Ibid. * History 0/ Henry I'll. ' Exper. History. 

3 Ibid. "Ibid. ' « Charge against Talbot. 



FRANCIS BACON WAS A POET. ' 143 

XII. Had he the Higher Genius? 

We come now to another question. Granted that he had these 
humbler qualities of a vivacious mind, did he possess the loftier 
features of the imagination, those touches where heart and soul 
and sense of melody are fused together as in the great Plays? 

Undoubtedly an affirmative answer must be given to this ques- 
tion. But as in the doings of daily life he was, as Byron says, "off the 
tripod," it is only when he is, as Prospero has it, "touched to the 
quick," by some great emotion, that he forgets the philosophical and 
political restraints he has imposed upon himself, and pours forth his 
heart in words. One of these occasions was his downfall, in utter 
disgrace, fined, imprisoned, exiled from the court. In his petition 
to the House of Lords he cries out from the depths of his soul: 

I am old, weak, ruined, in want, a very subject of pity. 
We seem to hear the voice of Lear: 

A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man.' 
And, still speaking of himself, he continues with this noble 
thought: 

It may be you will do posterity good, if out of the carcass of dead and rotten 
greatness, as out of Samson's lion, there may be honey gathered for the use of 
future times.* 

What a noble, what a splendid image is this ! How the meta- 
phor is interwoven, Shakespeare-wise, not as a distinct comparison, 
but into the entire body of the thought. He is appealing for 
mercy, for time to finish his great works; he is himself already 
"dead and rotten greatness," but withal majestic greatness; he is 
Samson's lion, but in the carcass the bees have made their hive 
and hoarded honey for posterity. And what a soul ! That in the 
hour of ruin and humiliation, sacrificed, as I believe, to save a dis- 
honest King and a degraded favorite, he could still love humanity 
and look forward to its welfare. 

Could that expression have come from any other source than 

the mind that wrote Shakespeare ? The image was not unfamiliar 

to the writer of the Plays: 

'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb 
In the dead carrion.^ 

' Lear, iii, 2. "^ Petition to the House of Lords. ' 2ci Henry II'., iv, 4. 



144 FA'AA'CIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Take another instance. Bacon speaks of 

The ocean, the solitary handmaid of eternity.' 

If that thought was found in the Plays, would it not be on the 
tongues of all men as a magnificent image? 
And what poetry is there in this ? 

But men must learn that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for 
God and the angels to be lookers-on. "■' 

If Shakespeare had written a prose essay, should-we not expect 
him to speak something after this fashion ? 

But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from 
the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to 
be called images, because they generate still and cast their seeds in the minds of 
others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so 
that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and 
commodities from place to place and consociateth the most remote regions in par- 
ticipation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as 
ships, pass through the vast seas of time and make ages so distant to participate of 
the wisdom, illuminations and inventions, the one of the other.^ 

How poetical is the following: 

Her royal clemency which as a sovereign and precious balm continually distil- 
leth from her fair hands, and falleth into the wounds of many that have incurred 
the offense of the law.'* 

Again we have : 

Sure I am that the treasure that cometh from you to her Majesty is but as a 
vapor which riseth from the earth and gathereth into a cloud and stayeth not there 
long, but upon the same earth it falleth again. It is like a sweet odor of honor and 
reputation to our nation throughout the world. ^ 

We are reminded of Portia's : 

The quality of mercy is not strained. 

It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath.^ 

And also of the following: 

The heavens rain odors on you.'' 

How beautiful is this expression of Bacon: 

A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a 
tinkling cymbal where there is no love.® 

I The Nature of Things. ^ Bacon's Speech in Parliament, 1597-8, vol. 
"^Advancement 0/ Learning., book li. ii, p. 86. 

' Ibid., book i. ' Merchant 0/ Venice, iv, i. 

* Discourse in Praise of the Queen: Life ' Twelfth Night, iii, i. 

and H'ork.s, vol. i, p. 129. "Essay Of Friendship. 



FRAA'CIS BACON WAS A POET. 145 

How figurative is this: 

The King slept out the sobs of his subjects until he was awakened with the 
thunderbolt of a Parliament.' 

What poet has written in prose anything more poetical than this ? 

The unfortunate destinies of hopeful young men, who, like the sons of Aurora, 
puffed up with the glittering show of vanity and ostentation, attempt actions above 
their strength. . . . For among all the disasters that can happen to mortals, there 
is none so lamentable, and so powerful to move compassion, as the JlLnvcr of virtue 
cropped 7vith too sudde7t a mischance. . . . Lamentation and mourning /'////< 7',/rc;««ii 
their obsequies like those funereal birds} 

How fine is this expression : 

He took, as it were, the picture of words from the life of reason.^ 

There is a rhythm in this: 

Bred in the cells of gross and solitary monks.* 

How poetical is his conception when he speaks '' of the prepara- 
tion for the grand Armada and the Spanish invasion of England, 
as being "-like the travail of an elephant.'" And again, when he 
speaks of one of the Popes, who, by his labors, prevented the 
Mohammedanizing of the white race, as one who had "//// a ring 
in the snout of the Ottoman boar," whereby he was prevented from 
rooting up and ravaging the fair field of Europe. The words 
draw a picture for us which the memory cannot forget. 

What a command of language does he exhibit ! Take these 

sentences: 

Words that come from wasted spirits and an oppressed mind are more safe in 
being deposited in a noble construction.^ 

Neither doth the wind, as far as it carrieth a voice, with a motion thereof, con- 
found any of the delicate and figurati7<e articulations of the air, in variety of words.'' 

Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air? ^ 

The first of these expeditions invasive was achieved with great felicity, ravished 
a strong and famous port in the lap and bosom of their high countries.* 

Whilst I live, my affection to do you service shall remain quick under the ashes 
of my fortune.'* 

He speaks of Catiline as 

A very fury of lust and blood." 

' Report of Spanish Grievances. ' Natural History, cent, ii, §125. 

' Wisdom of the A ncients — Memnon. ** A dvancement of Learning, booli ii. 

^ Advancement of Learning, hooV\. 'Bacon's Speech in Parliament, 39 Eliz. (t5g7\ 

* Ibid., book ii. Life and Works, ii, 88. 
8 In Praise of the Queen. '" Letter to Earl of Bristol. 

* His Submission to Parliament. " Advancement of Learning, book ii. 



146 J-A\1.VC/S BACCKV THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 

Take these sentences: 

Religion sweetly touched with eloquence.' 

The admirable and exquisite suhtility of nature.^ 

Have you never seen a flv in amber more beautifully entombed than an Egyptian 
monarch ? 

When it has at last been clearly seen what results are to be expected from the 
nature of things and the nature of the mind, we consider that we shall have pre- 
pared and adorned a nuptial couch for the mind and the universe, the Divine 
Goodness being our bridesmaid. 

The blustering affection of a wild and naked people.' 

Sweet, ravishing music. . . . 
The melody and delicate touch of an instrument.'' 

But these blossoms of unripe marriages were but friendly wishes and the airs 
of loving entertainments.^ 

To dig up the sepulchers of buried and forgotten impositions.^ 

But the King did much to overcast his fortunes, which proved for many years 
together full of broken seas, tides and tempests.'' 

Neither was the song of the sirens plain and single, but consisting of such a 
variety of melodious tunes, so fitting and delighting the ears that heard them, as 
that it ravished and betrayed all passengers.* 

We might make a book of such citations. 

Mr. John H. Stotsenburg, of New Albany, Indiana, has put 

together, in a newspaper article, a number of extracts from Bacon, 

and arranged them as if they were blank verse. I give a few of 

these. It is surprising to observe how much, in this shape, they 

resemble the poetry of the Shakespeare Plays, and how readily 

they would deceive an ordinary reader: 

Truth may come, perhaps, 
To a pearl's value that shows best by day. 
But rise it will not to a diamond's price 
That showeth always best in varied lights. 

Yet it is not death man fears, 
But only the stroke of death. 

Virtue walks not in the highway 
Though she go heavenward. 

Why should we love our fetters, though of gold ? 

When resting in security, man is dead; 

His soul is buried within him 

And his good angel either forsakes his guard or sleeps. 

' Advancement 0/ Learning, book i. ^History 0/ Henry I'll. 

"^ Novitni Organiini, book ii. "Speech in Parliament, 39 Elizabeth, 1597. 

^ History 0/ Henry I'U. ' History 0/ Henry I'H. 

* IVisdoin 0/ the A ncients. * Wisdotn 0/ the A ncients- — Sireus, 



J-RAA'CIS BACON WAS A POET. 1 47 

There is nothing under heaven 

To which the heart can lean, save a true friend. 

Why mourn, then, for the end which must he 

Or spend one wish to have a minute added 

To the uncertain date which marks our years ? 

Death exempts not man from being, 

But marks an alteration only. 

He is a guest unwelcome and importunate 

And he will not, must not be said nay. 

Death arrives gracious only 

To such as sit in darkness 

Or lie heavy-burdened with grief and irons. 

To the poor Christian that sits slave-bound 

In the galleys; 

To despairful widows, pensive pensioners and deposed kings; 

To them whose fortune runneth backward 

And whose spirits mutiny: 

Unto .^uch death is a redeemer, 

And the grave a place of retiredness and rest. 

These wait upon the shore, and waft to him 

To draw near, wishing to see his star 

That they may be led to him, 

And wooing the remorseless sisters 

To wind down the watch of life 

And break them off before the hour. 

It is as natural to die 
As to be born. 

In many of these there are scarcely any changes, except in 
arranging them as blank verse instead of in the form of prose; and 
they have been taken as prose simply because Bacon so first 
wrote them. 

No man, I think, can have followed me thus far in this 
argument without conceding that Bacon was a poet. If a poet, 
''the greatest of mankind" would be the greatest poet of maii- 
kind. Whatever such a mind strove to accomplish would be of 
the highest. Nothing commonplace could dwell in such a 
temple. 

We must admit that he possessed everything needed for the 
preparation of the Shakespeare Plays. Learning, industry, am- 
bition for immortality; command of language in all its heights and 
depths; the power of compressing thought into condensed sen- 
tences; wit, fancy, imagination, feeling and the temperament of 
genius. 



148 J-MANCJS BACON 77/J-: A I "I'll OK OF THE PLAYS. 

XIII. His Wit. 

Buf it will be said, Was he not lacking in the sense of humor.? 

By no means. It was the defect of his public speeches that his 
wit led him aside from the path of dignity. Ben Jonson says his 
oratory was " nobly censorious when he could spare or pass by a 
jest." Sir Robert Naunton says, " He was abundantly facetious, 
which took much with the Queen." The Queen said, "He hath a 
great wit." "I wish your Lordship a good Easter," says the 
Spanish Jew, Gondomar, about to cross the Channel. " I wish you 
a good Pass-over," replied Bacon. Queen Elizabeth asked Bacon 
whether he had found anything that smacked of treason in a certain 
book. " No," said Bacon, "but I have found much felony." "How 
is that?" asked the Queen. "The author." said Bacon, "has stolen 
many of his conceits from Cornelius Tacitus." 

In the midst even of his miseries, after his downfall, he writes 

(1625) to the Duke of Buckingham: 

I marvel that your Grace should think to pull th^wn the monarchy of Spain 
without my good help. Your Grace laill i^ii'r inc Iciwc to lu- merry, however the tvorld 
goeth ivith Die. 

I have just quoted Macaulay's declaration that Bacon's sense 
of wit and humor was so powerful that it oftentimes usurped the 
place of reason and tyrannized over the whole man. 

We find in the author of the Shakespeare Plays the same ina- 
bility to restrain his wit. 

Says Carlyle: 

In no point does Shakespeare exaggerate but only in laughter. Fiery objurga- 
tions, words that pierce and burn, are to be found in Shakespeare; yet he is always 
in measure here, never what Johnson would remark as a specially "good hater." 
But his laughter seems to pour from him in floods. . . . Not at mere weakness, at 
misery or poverty, never. 



chaptp:r II. 

THE WRITER OE THK TLA YS A PHILOSOPHER. 

First, let me talk with this philosopher. 

Lear, i!t\ 4, 

IN the attempt to establish identity I have shown that Bacon 
was a poet as well as a philosopher. I shall now try to estab- 
lish that the writer of the Plays was a philosopher as well as a 
poet. In this way we will come very near getting the two heads 
under one hat. 

The poet is not necessarily a philosopher; the philosopher is not 
necessarily a poet. One may be possessed of marvelous imagina- 
tive powers, with but a small share of the reasoning faculty. 
Another may penetrate into the secrets of nature with a brain as 
■dry as grave-dust. 

The crude belief about Shakespeare is that he was an inspired 
plow-boy, a native genius, a Cornish diamond, without polishing; a 
poet, and nothing but a poet. I propose to show that his mind 
was as broad as it was lofty; that he was a philosopher, and more 
than that, a nataral philosopher; and more than that, that he held 
precisely the same views which Bacon held. 

Let us see what some of the great thinkers have had to say 
upon this subject: 

Carlyle makes this most significant speech: 

There is an understanding manifested in the construction of Shakespeare's 
Plays equal to that in Bacon's NoTum Organtiin. 

Hazlitt has struck upon the same pregnant comparison: 

The wisdom displayed in Shakespeare was equal in profoundness to the great 
Lord Bacon's Novum Organuni. 

Coleridge said: 

He was not only a great poet, but a great philosopher. 
Richard Grant White calls him 

The greatest philosopher and the worldly-wisest man of modern times. 

140 



150 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Says Emerson: 

He was inconceivably wise. The others conceivably.' 
Barry Cornwall says: 

He was not a mere poet in the vulgar sense of the term. . . . On the con- 
trary, he was a man eminently acute, logical and philosophical. His reasoning 
faculty was on a par with his imagination and pervaded all his works completely. '^ 

Lander calls Shakespeare 

The wisest of men, as well as the greatest of poets. 

Pope calls Bacon 

The it'iscst of mankind. 

Jeffrey says of Shakespeare: 

He was more full of wisdom and sagacity than all the moralists and satirists 
that ever lived. 

Coleridge says: 

Shakespeare's judgment equaled, if it did not surpass, his creative faculty. 

Dr. Johnson says: 

From his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence 

Swinburne calls Shakespeare: 

The wisest and /iiightiesf mind that ever was informed with the spirit or genius 
of creative poetry. 

Richard Grant White says of Shakespeare: 

He was the most observant of men. 

On the other hand, Edmund Burke said of Bacon: 

He possessed the most distinguished and refined observation of human life. 

Alfred H. Welsh says of Bacon: ' 

Never was observation at once more recondite, better-natured and more care- 
fully sifted. 

Surely these two inen, if we can call them such, ran in closely 
parallel lines. 

And it must be remembered that these witnesses are not advo- 
cates of the Baconian authorship of the Plays. Many of them never 
heard of it. 

I. Bacon's Philosophy. 

But there are two kinds of philosophy — the transcendental and 
the practical. Naturally, the first has most relation to the imagin- 
ation; the latter tends to drag down the mind to the base details 

' Re/>rcsc>itative Men, p. 209. * Preface to Works 0/ Bcu Jonsor. 



THE WRITER OF THE PLAYS A PHILOSOPHER. ,51 

of life. The mind must be peculiarly constructed that can at the 
same time grapple with the earth and soar in the clouds. It was 
the striking peculiarity of Bacon's system of philosophy that it 
tended to make great things little and little things great. 

It was the reverse of that old-time philosophy to which Shake- 
speare sneeringly alluded when he said: 

We have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar things super- 
natural and causeless.' 

Says Macaulay: 

Some people may think the object of the Baconian philosophy a low object.'^ 

And again he observes: 

This persuasion that nothing can be too insignificant for the attention of the 
wisest which is not too insignificant to give pleasure or pain to the meanest, is the 
essential spirit of the Baconian philosophy.' 

Bacon careci nothing for the grand abstrusenesses: he labored 

for the "betterment of men's bread and wine" — the improvement 

of the condition of mankind in their worldly estate. This was the 

gospel he preached. Like Socrates, he "dragged down philosophy 

from the clouds." He said: 

The evil, however, has been wonderfully increased by an opinion, or inveterate 
conceit, which is both vainglorious and prejudicial, namely, that the dignity of the 
human mind is lowered by long and frequent intercourse with experiments and 
particulars, which are the objects of sense and confined to matter, especially since 
such matters are iiiea}i subjects for meditation. •• 

And again, in his Experimental Natural History^ he says: 

We briefly urge as a precept, that there be admitted into this (natural) history: 
I. The most common matters, such as one might think it superfluous to insert, 
from their being well known; 2. Base, illiberal and filthy matters, and also those 
which are trifling and puerile, . . . nor ought their worth to be measured by their 
intrinsic value, but by their application to other points and their influence on phil- 
osophy. 

And again: 

This was a false estimation that it should be a diminution to the mind of man 
to be much conversant in experiences and particulars, subject to sense and bound 
in matter, and which are laborious to search, ignoble to meditate, harsh to deliver, 
illiberal to practice, infinite as is supposed in number, and noways accommodate 
to the glory of arts.^ 

And, strange to say, when we turn to Shakespeare we find 
embalmed in poetry, where one would think there would be the 

' Airs Well that F.iuts ll'.-l/, ii, 3. ' Ibid., p. 272. •'■ /Vlioit Labyrhdhi. 

* Essay Bacon, p. 278. ■* Novum Orgaiiitni, book i. 



152 



FA'.LVC/S B.ICO.V THE AUTHOR OF THE TLA VS. 



least chaoce to find it, and with which it would seem to have no 
natural kindred or coherence, this novel philosophy. 
Shakespeare says: 



And again: 



Some kinds of baseness 
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters 
Toint to ricli ends.^ 

Nature, what things there are. 
Most abject in fegard and dear in use ! 



What things again most dear in the esteem 
And poor in worth! - 

This is the very doctrine taught by Bacon, which I have just 
quoted: 

Base, illiberal and filthy matters, and also those which are trifling and puerile, 
. . . nor ought their worth to be measured by their intrinsic value, but by their 
application to other points and their influence on philosophy. 

Why did not Bacon quote that sentence from the Tempest! 

Some kinds of baseness 
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters 
Point to rich ends. 

a 

No wonder Birch is reminded of Bacon when he reads Shake- 
speare. He says: 

Glendower is very angry at the incredulity of Hotspur, and reiterates again 
and again the signs that he thought marked him extraordinary. Hotspur not only 
replies with badinage, but ascribes, ivith Baconian inductio^i, all that Glendower 
thought miraculous and providential to nature and the earth.'' 

Dowden describes the philosophy of Shakespeare in words that 

fully fit the philosophy of Bacon. He says: 

The noble positivism of Shakespeare. . . . ILniiTgy, dcT'otion to t/ie fact,se\i-gov- 
ernment, tolerance, ... an indifference to externals in comparison with that 
which is of the invisible life, and a resolution to judge of all things fro>n a purely 
Jiuman standpoint.^ 

The same writer says: 

The Elizabethan drama is essentially mundane. To it all that is upon this 
earth is real, and it does not concern itself greatly about the reality of other 
things. Of heaven or hell it has no power to sing. It finds such and such facts 
here and now, and does not invent or discover supernatural causes to explain these 
frets. ^ 

Richard Grant White says: 

For although of all poets he is most profoundly psychological, as well as most 
fanciful and most imaginative, yet with him philosophy, fancy and imagination 

' Tempest, iii, i. =' Birch, Philos. and Relig. o/Sliak., p. 238. ^Ibid., p. 23. 

"^ I'roiliis and Cressida, iii, 3. ■* Dowden, S/ia/c. Mind and A rt, p. 34. 



THE WRITER OF THE TLA YS A P HFT.OSOPHER. 153 

:are penetrated with the spirit of that unwritten law of reason which we speak of as 
if it were a faculty — common sense. Ilis philosophy is practical und his poetical 
views are fused -with philosophy and poetry. He is withal the sage and the oracle of 
this world. . . . There is in him the constant presence and rule of reason in his 
most exalted flights.' 

Jeffrey says: 

When the object requires it he is always keen and "worldly and practical, and 
yet, without changing his hand or stopping his course, he scatters around him as 
he goes all sounds and shapes of sweetness. 

It needs no further argument to demonstrate: 

1. That the writer of the Plays was a philosopher. 

2. That he was a practical philosopher. 

I shall now go farther, and seek to show that, like Bacon, he 

was a natural philosopher, a student of nature, a materialist 

Bacon says: 

Divine omnipotence was required to create anything out of nothing, so also is 
ithat omnipotence to make anything lapse into nothing. - 

The writer of the Plays had grasped the same thought: 

O anything of nt)thing first created.'' 
Bacon says: 

Nothing proceeds from nothing.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Nothing will come of nothing.* 
Nothing can be made out of nothing." 

A'e see the natural philosopher also in those reflections as to 

the indestructibility of matter and its transmutations in these 

verses- 

Full fadom five thy father lies; 

Of his bones are coral made; 
These are pearls that were his eyes: 

Nothing of him that doth fade. 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange." 

Hamlet's meditations run in the same practical direction. He 

perceives that the matter of which Alexander was composed was 

indestructible: 

Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returned to dust; the dust 
is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam (whereto he was converted) 
might they not stop a beer barrel? 

' Life and Genius of Shak., p. 293. ' Romeo and Juliet, i, i. ^ Lear, I, t. 

'^ Thoughts on the Nature 0/ 'J'kings. * Novum Organum, book ii. " Ibid., i, x. 

' Tetnpest, i, 2. 



154 FA'AJVC/S BACO.Y THE AUTHOK OF THE PLAYS. 

Illustrious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. 

And when we turn again to Bacon we find him considering how 

All things pass through an appointed circuit and succession of transformations. 
. . . All things change; nothing really perishes.' 

And again Bacon says: 

For there is nothing in nature more true . . . than that nothing is reduced to 
nothing.'' 

Henry IV. delivers what Birch calls "an episode proper to a 

geological inquirer, and savoring of the theory of the materialist 

with regard to the natural and not providential alteration of the 

globe," when he says: 

O Heaven! that one might read the book of fate 

And see the revolution of the times; 

Make mountains level, and the continent 

(Weary of solid firmness) melt itself 

Into the sea ! and other times to see 

The beachy girdle of the ocean. 

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances, mocks 

And changes fill the cup of alteration 

With divers liquors.'' 

Birch adds: 

When he returns to politics, and makes them a consequence, as it were, of the 
preceding philosophical reflections, we do not see the connection, except in that 
materialistic view of things, and mcrssitarian way of t/iiiikiiti^, in which Shake- 
speare frequently indulges, and which involved all alike, physical and human 
effects, in the causes and operations of nature. We either see the unavoidable ten- 
dency of Shakespeare's mind to drag in some of his own thoughts at the expense 
of situation or probability, or we must admit them so mixed up in his philosophy 
as not to be divided."* 

We find the man of Stratford (if we are to believe he wrote the 

Plays), while failing to teach his daughter to read and write, urging 

that the sciences should be taught in England! 

Even so our houses, and ourselves, and children. 
Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time. 
The sciences that should become our country.^ 

We see the natural philosopher also in Shakespeare's reflections 

in Measure for Measure : 

Thou art not thyself; 
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains 
That issue out of dust.** 

1 Thoughts on the Nature of T/iings. < Birch, Philosophy and Ki-ligion of .Shak.^ p. 249. 

^ Nozmm Organutii^ book ii. ^ Henry /'., v, 2. 

^ Henry IV., iii, i. "Act iii, scene i. 



THE WRITER OE THE PLAYS A PHILOSOPHER. 155 

Here we find the same mind, that traced the transmutations of 
the dust of Alexander and Caesar, following, in reverse order, the 
path of matter from the inorganic dust into the organic plant, 
thence into fruit or grain, thence into the body, blood and brain of 
man. Man is not himself; he is simply a congeries of atoms, 
brought together by a power beyond himself. 

And Shakespeare says: 

It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover.' 

The natural philosopher is shown also in that wise and merciful 

reflection: 

For the poor beetle that we tread upon 

In corporal sufferance finds as great a pang 

As when a giant dies.- 

And we turn to Bacon, and we find him indulging in a similar 
thought: 

But all violence to the organization of animals is accompanied with a sense of 
pain, according to their different kinds and peculiar natures, owing to that sentient 
essence which pervades their frames.'' 

Observe the careful student of nature also in this: 

Many for many virtues excellent, 

None but for some, and yet all different. 

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies 

In herbs, plants, stones and their true qualities: 

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live, 

But to the earth some special good doth give; 

Nor aught so good, but, strained from that fair use. 

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.* 

Here, again, we see the Baconian idea that the humble things 
of earth, even the vilest, have their noble purposes and uses. 
And the same study of plants is found in the following: 

Checks and disasters 
Grow in the veins of actions highest reared; 
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, 
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain 
Tortive and errant from his course-and growth.'' 

And in the very direction of Bacon's ctirious investigations into 
life is this reference to the common belief of the time, that a horse- 
hair, left in the water, turns into a living thing: 

' As Vou Like It, iii, 2. ' /'//<• Nature o/ Things. •' Troilus unci Cressida, i, ,;. 

^ Measure /or Measure, iii, i. ' Romeo and Juliet , ii, 3. 



156 FHANC/S /^.ICOA' THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Much is breeding 
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life, 
And not a serpent's poison.* 

It has even been noted by others that in that famous descrip- 
tion of the hair, "standing on end like quills upon the fretful por- 
cupine," the writer hints at the fact that the quills of that animal 
are really modified hairs." 

And when Lady Macbeth says: 

I know 
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: 
I would, while it was smiling in my face, 
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums 
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn. 
As you have done to this-* — 

we perceive that the writer had thought it out that the teeth are 
but modified bones. 

The student of natural phenomena is also shown in these sen- 
tences: 

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth. ■* 

Can I go forward when my heart is here ? 
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out !'' 

I will find 
Where truth is hid, though it were hid, indeed, 
Within the center."^ 

While Bacon, seeming to anticipate the Newtonian specula- 
tions, says: 

Heavy and ponderous bodies tend toward the center of the earth by their 
peculiar formation. . . . Solid bodies are borne toward the center of the earth.' 

And here we perceive that the poet and the play-writer had 

even considered the force of the sun's heat in producing agitations 

of the atmosphere. 

He says: 

Which shipmen do the hurricano call, 
Constringed in mass by the almighty sun.* 

Bacon observed that 

All kind of heat dilates and extends the air, . . . which produces this breeze 
as the sun goes forward . . . and thence thunders and lightnings and storms.' 

' A ntony and Cleopatra. ^ Koiiica atid Juliet , ii, t. 

''■American Cyclopedia^ vol. viii, p. 384. " Hamlet, ii, 2. 

3 Macbeth, i, 7. ' Novtnn Organnm, book ii. 

^ Sonnet cxlvi. * Troilics and Cressida, v, 2. 

^Author. 0/ Slutl;., \). 310. 



7 HE WRITER OF THE PLAYS A rjIILOSOPHER. 



T57 



And Judge Holmes calls attention to the following parallel 
thought in Shakespeare: 

As whence the sun gins his reflection, 
Ship-wrecking storms and direful thunders break.' 

And that all-powerful preponderance of the sun in the affairs of 
the planet, which modern science has established, was realized by 
the author of the Plays, when he speaks, in the foregoing, of "the 
almighty sun," " constringing " the air and producing the hurri- 
cane. It is no wonder that Richard Grant White exclaims: 

The entire range of human knowledge must be laid under contribution to 
illustrate his writings. - 

And the natural philosopher is shown in the question of Lear 
(for Shakespeare's lunatics ask many questions that wise men can- 
not answer) : 

Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?'' 

In his A^atural History^ we find Bacon occupying himself with 
kindred thoughts. He discusses the casting-off of the shell of the 
lobster, crab, era-fish, the snail, the tortoise, etc., and the making 
of a new shell: 

The cause of the casting of the skin and shell should seem to be the great 
quantity of matter that is in those creatures that is fit to make skin or shell* 

And again says Lear: 

First let me talk with this philosopher: 
What is the cause of thunder P"" 

And Bacon had considered this question also. He says: 

We see that among the Greeks those who first disclosed the natural causes of 
thunder and storms, to the yet untrained ears of man, were condemned as guilty 
of impiety towards the gods.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

And do but see his vice; 
'Tis to his virtue a just equino.x, 
The one as long as the other.'' 

In this we have another observation of a natural phenomenon. 

And here is another: 

Know you not 
The fire, that mounts the liquor till it run o'er, 
In seeming to augment it, wastes it.*" 

' Macbeth^ i, i. ■* Century viii, § 7:52. " Othello^ ii, 3. 

^Shak. Genius. \>. -i^i. ^ Lear, iii, 4. " Nenrv I '///., iyU. 

•/.c.7>-, i, 5. " jVo7'»}>r Organintty book i. 



158 J-N.l.VC/S BACOX THE AC Til OK OF THE PLAYS. 

The poet had also studied the causes (if malaria. 
He says; 

All the infections that the sun sucks up 

From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him 

By inch-meal a disease.' 

And again: 

Infect her beauty, 
Yon fen-sucked fogs, drawn by the powerful sun, 
To fall and blast her pride. ■' 

And in the following- the natural philosopher is clearly ap- 
parent: 

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction 
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief, 
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves 
The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief 
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen 
From general excrement. ' 

I shall hereafter show, in the chapter on "Identical Compari- 
sons," that both Bacon and Shakespeare compared man to a species 
of deputy God, a lesser Providence, with a power over nature that 
approximated in kind, but not in degree, to the creative power of 
the Almighty. He says in one place: 

For in things artificial nature takes orders from man and works under his 
authority; without man such things would never have been made. But by the 
help and ministry of man a new force of bodies, another universe, or theater of 
things, comes into view. 

And in Shakespeare we have the following kindred reflections: 

Perdita. For I have heard it said. 

There is an art which, in their piedness, shares 

With great creating nature. 

Pol. Say there be; 

Yet nature is made better by no mean, 

But nature makes that mean; so o'er that art 

Which you say adds to nature, is an art 

Thar nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 

A gentler scion to the wildest stock. 

And make conceive a bark of baser kind 

By bud of nobler race: this is an art 

Which does mend nature, change it rather, but 

The art itself is nature.* 

' Tempest, ii, 2. * I. ear, ii, 4. ■' Titus Andronicus, iv, 3. * IVtnter's Tale, iv, 3. 



THE U'RITER OF TlIE PLA YS A PHILOSOPII EK. i^g 

And again: 

'Tis often seen 
Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds 
A native slip to us from foreign seeds.' 

And we have a glimpse in the following of the doctrine that 
nature abhors a vacuum. 

The air, which, hut for vacancy. 
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too. 
And made a gap in nature. '^ 

And here we find them, again, thinking the same thought, based 
on the same observation. Bacon says: 

As for the inequality of the pressure of the parts, it appeareth manifestly in 
this, that if you take a body of stone or iron, and another of wood, of the same 
magnitude and shape, and throw them with equal force, you cannot possibly throw 
the wood so far as the stone or the iron.-' 

And we find the same thought in Shakespeare: 

The thing that's heavy in itself. 

Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed.-* 

And here is a remarkable parallelism. Shakespeare says: 

There lives within the very flame of love 
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it.' 

Bacon says: 

Take an arrow and hold it in flame for the space of ten pulses, and when it 
cometh forth you shall find those parts of the arrow which were on the outside of 
the fiame more burned, blackened, and turned almost to a coal, whereas that in the 
midst of the flame will be as if the fire had scarce touched it. This . . . showeth 
manifestly that flame burneth more violently towards the sides than in the midst.* 

And here is another equally striking. Bacon says: 

Besides snow hath in it a secret warmth; as the monk proved out of the text: 

" Qui dat nive?n sicitt lanam, gehi siciit cincrcs spargit." Whereby he did infer that 
snow did warm like wool, and frost did fret like ashes.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Since frost itself as actively doth burn.* 

Bacon anticipated the discovery of the power of one mind over 

another which we call mesmerism; and we find in Shakespeare 

Ariel saying to the shipwrecked men: 

If you could hurt, 
Your swords are now too massy for yotir strengths. 

And 7vill not be uplifted y 

1 A It's II 'ell that Ends It V//, 1,3. ' 2d Heiiry // '. , i , j . ' Natural History, § 788 . 

"^Antony and Cleopatra, ii, 2. '^ Hatnlei, iv, 7. ^ Hantlet, iii, 4. 

^ Natural History, §791. '^ Natural History, §32. ' Tempest, iii, 3. 



t6o FHAXCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

I conclude this chapter with the following citations, each of" 

which shows the profound natural philosopher: 

That man, how dearly ever parted, 
How much in having, or without or in. 
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, 
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; 
As when his virtues shining upon others 
Heat them, and they retort that heat again 
To the Jirst giver} 



Again: 



Again: 



Again: 



The beauty that is borne here in the face. 
The bearer knows not, but commends itself 
To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself. 
That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, 
Not going from itself. - 



No man is the lord of any thing. 

Though in and of him there be much consisting. 

Till he communicate his parts to others.* 



Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 

Not light them for ourselves; for if our virtues 

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched 

But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends 

The smallest scruple of her excellence. 

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 

Herself the glory of a creditor. 

Both thanks and use.^ 

1 Troilus and Cressida, ui, 3. ^ Ibid. ' Ibid. * Measure /or Measure, \, 1^ 



^w4o 




GORHAMBURY 
I, A. D, 1S21. 2. A. D. 1795. 3. A. D. 1568. 



CHAPTER III. 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE TLA YS. 

Dear earth ! I do salute thee with my hand. 

Richard 11., iii, 2, 

GENIUS, though its branches reach to the heavens and cover 
the continents, yet has its roots in the earth; and its leaves, 
its fruit, its flowers, its texture and its fibers, bespeak the soil in 
which it was nurtured. Hence in the writings of every great mas- 
ter we find more or less association with the scenes in which his 
youth and manhood were passed — reflections, as it were, on the 
camera of the imagination of those landscapes witli which destiny 
had surrounded him. 

In the work of the peasant-poet, Robert Burns, we cannot sepa- 
rate his writings from the localities in which he lived. Take away 

" Bonnie Doon; " 

" Auld Alloway's witch-haunted kirk ; " 

" Ye banks and braes and streams around, 
The castle of Montgomery; " 

" Auld Ayr, which ne'er a town surpasses 
For honest men and bonny lasses; " 

"Sweet Afton, 
Amid its green braes," 

and the thousand and one other references to localities with which 

his life was associated, and there is very little left which bears the 

impress of his genius. 

If we turn to Byron, we find the same thing to be true. We 

have his "Elegy on Newstead Abbey;" his poem "On Leaving 

Newstead Abbey; " his lines on " Lachin y Gair " in the Highlands, 

where "my footsteps in infancy wandered;" his verses upon 

"Movren of Snow;" his "Lines written beneath an Elm in the 

Churchyard of Harrow on the Hill;" his verses "On Revisiting 

Harrow," and his poem addressed "To an Oak at Newstead;" 

while " Childe Harold " is full of allusions to scenes with which 

his life-history was associated. 

i6i 



l62 FRANCIS BACOX THE AUTHOR OF T//F FLAYS. 

The same is true, to a greater or less extent, of all great writers 
who deal with the emotions of the human heart. 

I. Stratford-on-Avon is not Named in the Plays. 

In view of these things it will scarcely be believed that in all the 
voluminous writings of Shakespeare there is not a single allusion to 
Stratford, or to the river Avon. His failure to remember the dirty 
little town of his birth might be excused, but it would seem most 
natural that in some place, in some way, in drama or sonnet or 
fugitive poem, he should remember the beautiful and romantic river, 
along whose banks he had wandered so often in his youth, and whose 
natural beauties must have entered deeply into his soul, if he was 
indeed the poet who wrote the Plays. He does, it is true, refer to 
Stony-Stratford,' a village in the County of Bucks, and this makes the 
omission of his own Stratford of Warwickshire the more surprising. 

II. St. Albans Referred to Many Times. 

On the other hand, we find repeated references to St. Albans, 
Bacon's home, a village of not much more consequence, so far as 
numbers were concerned, than Stratford. 

Falstaff says: 

There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; . . . and the shirt, to say 
the truth, stolen from my host of Saint .-Uhans." 

In the 2d Henry I]\ we have this reference: 

Prince Henry. This Doll Tear-sheet should be some road. 
Poins. I warrant you, as common as the road between Saint Albans and 
London.'* 

In The Contention hetweeti the Two Famous Houses of York and Lan- 

caste?-, which is conceded to be the original form of some of the 

Shakespeare Plays, we have: 

For now the King is riding to Saint A/dans.* 

My lord, I pray you let me go post unto the King, 
Unto Saint Albans, to tell this news.'' 

Come, uncle Gloster, now let's have our horse, 
For we will to Sai^tt Albans presently.** 

In the same scene (in The Contention)^ of the miracle at Saint 

Albans : 

i Ric/iard ///., a, 4. ^3dHi'nryIi:,V\,2. ' Mbid., ii, 3. 

" 1st Heriry IV.yw,-!,. * ist Part oi Co >i tent ion, i, ■z. ^Ibid. 



THK GEOGRAPHY OF '////■: /'LAVS. 163 

Come, my lords, this night we'll lodge in Sain/ Albans} 

In the play of Kicharil JJJ. we have this allusion to Bacon's 

country seat: 

Was not your husband 
In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain ?'^ 

We have numerous references to St. Albans in the 2d Henry VI. : 

Messoiger. My Lord Protector, 'tis his Highness' pleasure 
You do prepare to ride unto Saint Albans:'' 

And again: 

Diiihcss. It is enough; I'll think upon the questions: 
When from Saint Albans we do make return.'' 

And again: 

York. The King is now in progress toward Saint Albans.^ 

III. Three Scenes in the Plays Laid at St. Albans. 

Scene i, act ii, 2il Henry VI., is laiJ at Saint Albans ; scene 2, act 
V, of the same is also laid at Saint Albans ; scene 3, act v, is laid in 
Fields, near Saint Albans. 

Note the following: 

Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Alban's shrine. 
Within this half-hour hath received his sight.* 

Enter the Mayor of Saint Albans. 

Being called 
A hundred times and oftener, in my sleep 
B ,• good .Saint Alban."' 



Again: 
Again: 

Again: 



Glos. Yet thou seest not well. 

Sitnpco.x. Yes, master, clear as day; I thank God and Saint Alban.'^ 

Again: 

Glostcr. My lord. Saint .llban here hath done a miracle.* 

Glostcr. My masters of .Saint .4lbans, have vou not beadles in your town?'" 

And again: 

For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign. 

The castle in Saint Albans, Somerset 

Hath made the wizard famous in his death." 

' 1st Contention, ii, i. ^ 2d Henry I'/., i, 2. ' Ibid., ii, i. '"Ibid., ii, i. 

2 Richard HI., i, 3. ■' Ibid., i, 3. » Ibid., ii, 1. " sd Henry / 7., v, 2. 

^2ct Henry VI.,\,2. « Ibid., ii, i. 9Ibid.,ii, i. 



j64 /•'A'./.\(7\ j^.uv.v the althok of riiK riAvs. 

Now by my hand, lords 'twas a j^lorioiis day, 
Saint AUhius' battle, won by famous York, 
Shall l>i' I'tcmizod in all age to conie.' 

Ill the j(/ y/fv/rr / /. we timl St. Albans retcrrccl to as t'olli)\vs: 

Marched toward S^iuit Albans to iiitcrceiU tin- OiR-eii.'- 

Atjain: 

Short tale to make — we at Saint Albans met.'' 
.\i;aiti: 

When you .uul 1 met at Saint Albans last."" 

Aoain: 

Mroilu-i of (iloster at Saint Aibaiis' field 

This lady's husband, Sir John luey, was shiin.-' 

JLrc is St. AUhxiis rejcrred to in tltc Shakcs['iarc Plays t-d'cnty-tltrct- 
timt's, and St/at/crd not onrr ! 

Is mU tliis t'xtraordinary ' What tic loniu-itcil tho Stiatt'oril 
wy,\\\ willi tin- little viUage of 1 h-rtfonlshiie. that ho shonUl tlrao- it 
into his \vritiiii4;s so otten ? 

\\'i> ail- toKl that he loved the village of Stratford, ami returned, 
when \'w\\ and famous, io eiul his days thfro. \\\' have oK^wino- 
pietnri'S, in the hooks oi the entltnsiastie i-ommentators. iit his wan- 
ilerinos alono- ilu> banks oi the lovelv Avon. Whv did he utterly 
blot them both unt ^A his writinos' 

lY. W \K\VUK.SIMKK loNOKFP 1\ I (IK PlAVS. 

Uni he iotuued the eoiii\ty of Warwickshire — his own bcautitid 
county of Warwickshire — in like fashion. 

Michael Orayton, poet and dramatist, a ciMitemporary kA Shak- 
spere, was, like him, born in Warwickshire, bat he did not toroei 
his native shire. lie thus imocati'S the place oi his birth: 

My native country, then, which so brave spirits hath bred. 
If there l>e virtues yet remaining in thy earth. 
Or any gooil of thine thou bred'st into my birth. 
Accept it as thine own. whilst now 1 sing of thee, 
CM" all thy later brood th' unworthiest though 1 be. 

The cminlv o\ W.irwickshire is only referred to once in the 
Plays i^ist henry //'.. iv, j), and "the lord of Warwickshire" is 
mentioned twice. Tlu" oidy reference that 1 know of to localities 
ir» Warwickshire is in the introdmtion to The Taming of the Shrni\ 
where Jl'ineoth named. It is assumed that this is Wilniecote, three 

^Jii //,tiry r/.,\,z. *s,f f/i-nry 17., ii.x. -Mbui. ' Ibid, ii. .-. -'■ Ibid. iii. ,{. 



nil-: cEouRAniY of j'he piavs. 105 

mill's distant tiom StiattOiHl-on-Avon. But of tliis there is no cer- 
tainty. 

Thero is a Woncot nicnlioiu-ci in _'</ J/t/iiy //'. — 

William \'isi)i (il W'oiicotl;' — 

and SO c'ai>tM- have tlu- SliaivSiuTcans hern to sustain the War- 
wickshire oiMoiii oi till- lMa\s that lhi'\ ha\t' t'onvcitetl tins into 
IVi/not. As, however, Master Robert Shallow, l'^S(.|uire. tlwelt in 
(iloucestershire — 

I lit- iiirouL;l\ (ili>uofsifrsliiii-, aiul ilu'ii- will I visit Master Robert Sliallovv Es- 
quire, I — 

aiul William \'isor was one ot his tenants or nndeilini^s. this Won- 

cot could not have been Wincot, near Stratlord, in Warwickshire. 

V. Sr. Ai.r.ANS i'iik Ckn ir \i Poi\ v ov 1 mi HisroRU'.vi. Plays. 

INIrs. Toll has pointed out how much of the ac-tion of the Shake- 
speare Plays iintls its t urinno-poinl antl c-enter in St. Albans: 

To any oiu' who sees in il one of the incilini; causes for tlu' idm[)ositioii of the 
historical plays calioil Shaki'sprarc's, ami I'spi'cially the sefond pari of llcnrv J'l. 
ami Richard 11 J., St. Albans and its nei>;hborhooil are in the highest degree sug- 
gestive and instructive. Gorhanibury was one of tlie bi)yish homes of Francis 
Bacon. When, at the age of nineteen, he was recalled from his gay life at lite 
court of the I'reiu h enih.issador on account of the sudden death of iiis father, il was 
t ) Ciorliambury thai he retired with his w'idowed mothei. Ihus he loiuul liimself 
on the very scene of the main i-\enls wliich form the plot of the second part of 
Henry / V. . . . The play i"ulniiiKii(.-s in the great i)aiile of .St. Albans, which took 
place in a field about one and a half miles fioni ("rorh.unljury. As a boy, Fraiu-is 
must liave heard the battle described by old men whose fathers may even have 
witnessed il. lie nuist frecpiently have ])assed "the alehouse' paltry sign " l)ene.ilh 
which Somersi't was killed by Richanl I'Lml.igeiiet (_'</ ILiuv /'/.. v, 2). lie must 
have trodden the Key Field where the bailie was fought, ami in which the last 
scene of the play is laid. It was a scene not likely to be forgotten. The Lancas- 
trians lost five thousantl men, incluiling the detestetl Duke of Somerset anil other 
nobles, and the poor, weak King, Henry \'l., w'as taken prisoner bv the Yorkists. 
Considering the mildness and moderation wdiich was invariably exerciseii by the 
Didvc of York, and the violent and bloodthirsty course pursued by ^ueen Marga- 
ret, it is no wonder that this, the first Yorkist victory of the Wars of the Roses, 
should be kept gri'en on llu- simi where il took [)laci'. 

Twas a glorious day. 
.•^aiiU .Mbans' battle, won l)y famous York, 
Shall bi' iterni/'d in all age to come. 

Before entering the abbey, let the visitor glance around. To the north of the 
town stands the old church of St. I'eter, and in its graveyard lie the bodies of many 
of those who were slain in the great battles between the rival houses of York and 
Lancaster. To the left is Hernard's heath, the scene of the second battle of St. 

' .\il V, sieiu- I . 



1 66 FJiANCIS BACON THE AUTJIOK Of THE PLAYS. 

Albans, where the Yorkist army was defeated, as related in jd Henry VI., ii, i. 
In the distance may be seen Hatfield house, the noble residence of the Marquis of 
Salisbury, but formerly the property of William of Hatfield, second son of Edward 
HI. (2d Henry VL, ii, 2). Within a short distance is King's Langley, the birth- 
place and burial place of the "famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York" {ist 
Henry VI., ii, 5), and, as we are further told, " fifth son " of Edward HI. {2d Henry 
VI., ii, 2). On the east of the town lay Key Field, the arena of the first battle of 
St. Albans. Across it may be seen the ancient manor-house, formerly inhabited 
by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. To the right is Sopwell nunnery, where Henry 
Vni. married Anne Boleyn. The history of the monastery to which the abbey 
was attached is intimately associated with English history. To go back no farther 
than the fourteenth century, there Edward I. held his court; there Edward H. was. 
a frequent visitor; thither, after the battle of Poictiers, Edward HI. and the Black 
Prince brought the French King captive. After the insurrection of Wat Tyler and 
Jack Straw, Richard H. and his Chief Justice came in person and tried the rioters. 
A conspiracy to dethrone Richard began at the dinner table of the Abbot, when 
Gloucester and the Prior of Westminster were his guests. This Gloucester was 
"Thomas of Woodstock," described in 2d Henry VI., ii, 2, as "the sixth son of 
Edward the Third." At a subsequent meeting of members of the conspiracy, the 
Duke of Gloucester, "Henry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby" {Riehard II., i, 
3), the Earl Marshal (ibid.). Scroop, Archbishop of Canterbury {Richard II., iii, 2), 
the Abbot of St. Albans and the Prior of Westminster {Richard II., iv, i) were 
present, and the perpetual imprisonment of the King was agreed upon. In the 
play of Richard II. every name mentioned in the old manuscript which records 
this meeting is included, except one — namely, the Abbot of St. Albans; and yet in 
the old records priority over Westminster is always given to him. It is conject- 
ured that the omission was intentional, and that the author did not wish by fre- 
quent repetition to give prominence to a name which would draw attention to the 
neighborhood of his own home. At the monastery of St. Albans rested the body 
of John, Duke of Lancaster {1st Henry IV., vol. 4), on the way to London for 
interment. His son Henry, afterward Cardinal Beaufort {ist Henry VI., i, 3, etc.), 
performed the exequies. Richard II. lodged at St. Albans on his way to the 
Tower, whence, having been forced to resign his throne to Bolingbroke, he 
was taken to Pomfret, imprisoned and murdered. Meanwhile, the resignation of 
the King being read in the House, the Bishop of Carlisle arose from his seat 
and stoutly defended the cause of the King. Upon this the Duke of Lancaster 
commanded that they should seize the Bishop and carry him off to prison at 
St. Albans. He was afterward brought before Parliament as a prisoner, but 
the King, to gratify the pontiff, bestowed on him the living of Tottenham. 
These events are faithfully rendered or alluded to in the Plays, the only notable 
omission being, as before, any single allusion to the Abbot of St. Albans (See 
Richard II., vol. vi, 22-29). 

Passing over many similar points of interest, let us enter the Abbey church by 
its door on the south side. There the visitor finds himself close to the shrine 
erected over the bones of the martyred saint. To this shrine, after the defeat of 
the Lancastrians, at the first battle of St. Albans, the miserable King, having been 
discovered at the house of a tanner, was conducted, previous to his removal as a 
prisoner to London. In the shrine is seen the niche in which handkerchiefs and 
other garments used to be put, in order that the miraculous powers attributed to 
the saint should be imparted to the sick and diseased who prayed at his shrine, 
and thereby hangs a tale. Close by the shrine is the tomb of good Duke Hum- 
phrey of Gloucester, who plays such a prominent part in Henry VI. The inscrip- 



THE GEOGKAPIJY OF THE FLAYS. 



167 



tion on his tomb is not such as most persons might expect to find as an epitaph on 
the proud and pugnacious, but popular warrior. No hint is conveyed of his strug- 
gles with the Duke of Burgundy, or of his warlike contests for the possession of 
Holland and Brabant. Three points are noted concerning him: That he was pro- 
tector to Henry VL; that he "exposed the impostor who pretended to have been 
born blind," and that he founded a school of divinity at Oxford. The story of the 
pretended bliifd man is the subject of 2d Henry VI., ii, 8, where it is introduced 
with much detail. Sir Thomas More quoted the incident as an instance of Duke 
Humphrey's acuteness of judgment, but the circumstance which seems to connect 
the epitaph not only with the play, but with Francis Bacon himself, is that it was 
not written immediately after the death of the Duke, but tardily, as the inscription 
hints, and it is believed to be the composition of John Westerham, head-master of 
the St. Albans grammar school in 1625 — namely, during the lifetime of Bacon, 
and at a date when Gorhambury was his residence. A phrase in the inscription 
applies to Margaret of Anjou, Henry's "proud, insulting queen," whose tomb, 
with her device of "Marguerites," or daisies, is not far from the shrine of 
St. Alban. It was by the intrigues of Margaret and her partisans that Duke 
Humphrey was arrested at Bury. The following night he was found dead in 
his bed — slain, as some old writers record, by the hand of Pole, Duke of 
Suffolk. (.?(/ Henry VI., iii, i; 223-2S1, ii, i, 1-202.) Not far from these tombs 
are two more of peculiar interest to students of Shakespeare. One is the 
resting-place of Sir Anthony de Grey, grandson of Henry Percy, Earl of 
Northumberland. The inscription says that he married "the fourth sister to our 
sovraine lady, the queen;" that is, Elizabeth Woodville, queen of Edward IV. 
She had been formerly married. 

At St. Albans' field 
This lady's husband. Sir John Grey, was slain. 
His lands then seized on by the conqueror.' 

Her suit to Edward to restore her confiscated property, and her subsequent 
marriage with him, form a prominent portion of the plot of the third part of 
Henry VI. 

Last, but not least, let us not overlook the mausoleum of "the Nevils' noble 
race," the family of the great Earl of Warwick, the "king-maker." In 2d Henry 
IV., V, 2, Warwick swears by his 

Father's badge, old Nevil's crest, 

The rampant bear chained to the ragged staff. 

The passage is vividly brought to the mind by the sight of a row of rampant 
bears, each chained to his ragged staff, and surmounting the monument erected 
over the grave of that great family of warriors. 

In fact, St. Albans seems to be the very center from which the 
eye surveys, circling around it, the grand panorama of the histor- 
ical Plays; while far away to the north lies the dirty little village 
of Stratford-on-Avon, holding not the slightest relation with any- 
thing in those Plays, save the one fact that the man who is said to 
have written them dwelt there. 

^ 3d Hcurv VI.. iii, 2. 



1 68 FRANCIS BACON THE ALfllOK OF THE PLAYS. 

VI. York Place. 

There was one other spot in England tenderly associated in 
Bacon's heart with loving memories; that was the royal palace of 
"York Place," in London, in which he was born. In the day of 
his success he purchased it, and it was at last, after his downfall, 
torn from his reluctant grasp by the base Buckingham. Bacon 
says of it: 

York House is the house wherein my father died, and where I first breathed, 
and there will I yield my last breath, if so please God.' 

We turn to the play of Henry VIII., and we find York Place 
depicted as the scene cohere Cardinal IVolsey entertains the King and his 
companions, masked as shepherds, with "good company, good wine, 
good welcome." 

And farther on in the play we find it again referred to, and 
something of its history given: 

jd Gentleman. So she parted. 

And with the same full state paced back again 

To Yorke-Place, where the feast is held. 

1st Gentleman . You must no more call it Yorke-Place, that's past; 

For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost; 

'Tis now the King's, and called White-hall. 

jd Gentleman. I know it; 

But 'tis so lately altered, that the old name 

Is fresh about me.^ 

How lovingly the author of the Plays dwells on the history of 
the place! 

VII. Kent. 

Bacon's father was born in Chislehurst; and we find many 
touches in the Plays which show that the writer, while he 
had not one good word to say for Warwickshire, turned lov- 
ingly to Kent and her people. He makes the double-dealing 
Say remark: 

Say. You men of Kent. 

Dick. What say you, Kent? 

Say. Nothing but this: \\% bona terra, mala gens. . . . 

Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ, 

Is termed the civil'st place of all this isle: 

Sweet is the country, because full of riches; 

The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy.^ 

' Letter to the Duke nf Lenox, 1621. - llcni-y /'///., iv, i. '^ 2d ll,-nyy IT., iv. 7. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE PLAYS. 169 

What made the Warwickshire man forget his own county and 
remember Caesar's ])raise of Kent? What tie bound William 
Shakspere to Kent ? 

And again, in another play, he comes back to this theme 

• The Kentishmen will willingly rise. 

In them I trust: for they are soldiers, 
Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.' 

The first scene of act iv of 2d Henry VI. is laid upon the sea- 
shore of Kent. 

It is in Kent that much of the scene of the play of King Lear is 
laid. Here we have that famous cliff of Dover, to the brow of 
which Edgar leads Gloucester: 

Come on, sir: 
Here's the place; stand still: how fearful 
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low. 
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air 
Shew scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down 
Hangs one that gathers samphire: dreadful trade: 
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head. 
The fishermen that walked upon the beach 
Appear like mice: and yon tall anchoring bark 
Diminished to her cocke; her cocke a buoy 
Almost too small for sight. 

"Jack Cade, the clothier," who proposed to dress the common- 
wealth and put new nap upon it, was a Kentishman. The insur- 
rection was a Kentish outbreak. The play of 2d Henry VI. largelv 
turns upon this famous rebellion. 

Many of the towns of Kent are referred to in the Plays, and 
Goodwin Sands appears even in the Italian play of The Merchant 
of Venice, as the scene of the loss of one of Antonio's ships. 

VIII. The Writer of the Plays had Visited Scotland. 

There is some reason to believe that the author of Macbeth 
visited Scotland. The chronicler Holinshead narrates that Mac- 
beth and Banquo, before they met the witches, " went sporting by 
the way together without other company, passing through the 
woods and fields, when suddenly, in the midst of a laund, there 
met them three women in strange and wild apparel." " This de- 
scription," says Knight, " presents to us the idea of a pleasant and 

^ 3d Hinry J 7., i, 3. 



lyo FRAA'C/S BACON THE AUTJJOR OF THE PLAYS. 

fertile place." But the poet makes the meeting with the witches 
" on the blasted heath." Knight tells us that " the country around 
Forres is wild moorland. . . . We thus see that, whether Macbeth 
met the weird sisters to the east or west of Forres, there was 
in each place that desolation which was best fitted for such 
an event, and not the woods and fields and launds of the 
chronicler." 

This departure from Holinshead's narrative would strongly 
indicate that the poet had actually visited the scene of the play. 

Again, it is claimed that the disposal of the portal " at the south 
entry" of the castle of Inverness is strictly in accordance with the 
facts, and could not have been derived from the chronicle. Even 
the pronunciation of Dunsinane, with the accent on the last sylla- 
ble, is shown to have been in accordance with the custom of the 
peasantry. 

Macbeth was evidently written after the accession of James I., 

and we find that Bacon paid a visit to King James before he came 

to London and probably while he was still in Scotland. In Sped- 

ding's Life and Letters'^ we find a letter from Bacon to the Earl of 

Northumberland, without date, referring to this visit. Spedding 

says: 

Meanwhile the news which Bacon received from his friends in the Scotch com/ 
appears to have been favorable: sufficiently so, at least, to encourage him to seek 
a personal interview with the King. I cannot find the exact date, but it' will be 
seen from the next letter that, before the King arrived in London, he had gone to 
meet him, carrying a dispatch from the Earl of Northumberland; and that he had 
been admitted to his presence. 

The letter speaks as follows: 

// may please your t^ooJ Lordship: 

I would not have lost this journey, and yet I have not that for which I 
went. For I have had no private conference to any purpose with the King; 
and no more hath almost any other English. For the speech his Majesty 
admitteth with some noblemen is rather matter of grace than of business. With 
the attorney he spake, being urged by the Treasurer of Scotland, but yet no more 
than needs must. . . . 

I would infer that this interview was held in Scotland. The 
fact that the Treasurer of Scotland was present and that the En- 
glish could not obtain private audience with the Kmg would indi- 
cate this. 

' Volume iii, p. 76. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OE THE J' LA VS. ,;, 

IX. The Writer of ihf. Plays had been in Italy. 

There are many reasons to believe that the writer of the Plavs 

had visited Italy. In a note upon the passage, 

Unto the tranect to the common ferry 
Which trades to Venice,' 

Knight remarks: 

If Shakspere had been at Venice (which, from the extraordinary keeping of the 
play, appears the most natural supposition), he must surely have had some situa- 
tion in his eye for Belmont. There is a common ferry at two places — Fusina and 
Mestre. 

In the same play the poet says: 

This night methinks is but the daylight sick. 

It looks a little paler; 'tis a day 

Such as the day is when the sun is hid.'- 

Whereupon Knight says: 

The light of the moon and stars (in Italy) is almost as yellow as the sunlight 
in England. . . . Two hours after sunset, on the night of a new moon, we have 
seen so far over the lagunes that the night seemed only a paler day — " a little paler." 

Mr. Brown, the author of Shakespeare's Autobiographieal Plays, 

strenuously maintained the opinion that Shakespeare must have 

visited Italy: 

His descriptions of Italian scenes and manners are more minute and accurate 
than if he had derived his information wholly from books. 

Mr. Knight, speaking of The Taming of the Shrew, says: 

It is difficult for those who have explored the city [of Padua] to resist the per- 
suasion that the poet himself had been one of the travelers who had come from 
afar to look upon its seats of learning, if not to partake of its " ingenious studies." 
There is a pure Paduan atmosphere hanging about this play. 

Bacon, it is known, visited France, and it is believed he traveled 
in Italy. 

X. The Writer ok lhe Plays had been at Sea. 

One other point, and I pass from this branch of the subject. 
Richard Grant White says: 

Of all negative facts in regard to his life, none, perhaps, is surer than that Iir 
iic'ver zcas at sea; yet in Hcnrv VIII., describing the outburst of admiration and 
loyalty of the multitude at sight of Anne Bullen, he says, as if he had spent his life 
on shipboard: 

Such a noise arose 
As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest; 
As loud, and to as many tunes. '' 

' Merchant of I 'iiine, iii, 4. '' .Act v, scene i. ■' /,//<• and Ci-fiim 0/ SItuki-sf'care, p. 259- 



172 J-'A'.LVcy.s ji.icox Tin-: al'tiiok of the plays. 

More than this, we are told that this man, who had never been 
at sea, wrote the play of The Tempest^ which contains a very accu- 
rate description of the management of a vessel in a storm. 

The second Lord Mulgrave gives, in Boswell's edition, a com- 
munication showing that 

Shakespeare's technical knowledge of seamanship must have been the result of 
the most accurate personal observation, or, what is perhaps more difficult, of the 
power of combining and applying the information derived from others. 

But no books had then been published on the subject. Dr. 
Johnson says: 

His naval dialogue is, perhaps, the first example of sailor's language exhibited 

on the stage. 

Lord Mulgrave continues: 

The succession of events is strictly observed in the natural progress of the distress 
described; the expedients adopted are the most proper that could be devised for a 
chance of safety. . . . The words of command are strictly proper. . . . He has shown 
a knowledge of the new improvements, as well as the doulitful points of seamanship. 

Capt. Glascock, R. N., says: 

The Boatswain, in The 7\'»ipfs/, delivers himself in the true vernacular of the 
forecastle. 

All this would, indeed, be most extraordinary in a man who had 

never been at sea. Bacon, on the other hand, we know to have 

made two voyages to France; we know how close and accurate 

were his powers of observation; and in The Natural History of the 

Winds ' he gives, at great length, a description of the masts and 

sails of a vessel, with the dimensions of each sail, the mode of 

handling them, and the necessary measures to be taken in a storm. 

XI. Conclusions. 

It seems, then, to my mind, most clear, that there is not a single 
passage in the Plays which unquestionably points to any locality 
associated with the life of the man of Stratford, while, on the 
other hand, there are numerous allusions to scenes identified with 
the biography of Bacon ; and, more than this, that the place of Bacon's 
birth and the place of his residence are both made the subjects of 
scenes in the Plays, and nearly all the historical Plays turn about 
St. Albans as a common center. 

The geography of the Plays would all indicate that Francis 
Bacon wrote them, 

' Section 29. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE POLITICS OF THE PI. A YS. 

I love the people, 
But do not like to stage rae to their eyes; 
Though it do well, I do not relish well 
Their loud applause, and a'.'es vehement. 
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion •> 

That does affect it. 

Measure for Measure^ /, /. 

WE know what ought to have been the politics of Willianr. 
Shakspere, of Stratford. 
He came of generations of peasants; he belonged to the class 
which was at the bottom of the social scale. If he were a true man, 
with a burning love of justice, he would have sympathized with his 
kind. Like Burns, he would have poured forth his soul in protests 
against the inequalities and injustice of society; he would have 
asserted the great doctrine of the brotherhood of man; he would^ 
have anticipated that noble utterance: 

The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gold for a' that. 

If he painted, as the writer of the Plays did, an insurrection of • 
the peasants, of his cnc/i r/ass, he would have set forth their cause in 
the most attractive light, instead of burlesquing them. Such a 
genius as is revealed in the Plays, if he really came from the com- 
mon people and was filled with their spirit, would have prefigured 
that great social revolution which broke out twenty years after his 
death, and which brought a king^s head to the block. We should 
have had, on every page, passages breathing love of equality, of 
liberty; and other passages of the mockery of the aristocracy that 
would have burned like fire. He would have anticipated Pym, 
Hampden and Milton. 

A man of an ignorant, a low, a base mind may refuse to sym- 
pathize with his own caste, because it is oppressed and down- 
trodden, and put himself in posture of cringe and conciliation to 
those whose whips descend upon his shoulders; but a really great 

173 



174 FRAA^dS BACON THE AUTIJOK OF J HE PLAYS. 

and noble soul, a really broad and comprehensive mind, never would 
dissociate himself from his brethren in the hour of their affliction. 
No nobler soul, no broader mind ever existed than that revealed in 
the Plays. Do the utterances of the writer of those Plays indicate 
that he came of the common people? Not at all. 

I. Thk Writer of thf, Pt.avs w.as an Aristocrat. 

Appleton Morgan says: 

He was a constitutional aristocrat who lielieved in the established order of 
things, and wasted not a word of all his splendid eulogy upon any human right 
not in his day already guaranteed by charters or by thrones. 

Swinbtirne says- 

With him the people once risen in revolt, for any just or unjust cause, is 
always the mob, the unwashed rabble, the swinish multitude.' 

And again: 

For the drovers, who guide and misguide at will the turbulent flocks of their 
mutinous cattle, his store of bitter words is inexhaustible; it is a treasure-house of 
obloquy which can never be drained dry.- 

Walt Whitinan says: 

Shakespeare is incarnated, uncompromising feudalism in literature.^ 

Richard Grant White says: 

He always represents the laborer and the artisan in a degraded position, and 
often makes his ignorance and his uncouthness the butt of ridicule.* 

Dowden says: 

Shakspere is not democratic. When the people are seen in masses in his Plaj s 
they are nearly always shown as factious, fickle and irrational.-' 

Walter Bagehot says: 

Shakespeare had two predominant feelings in his mind. First, the feeling of 
loyalty to the ancient polity of this country, not because it was good, but because 
it existed. The second peculiar tenet is a disbelief in the middle classes. We fear 
he had no opinion of traders. You will generally find that when "a citizen" is 
mentioned he does or says something absurd. . . . The author of Coriolanus never 
believed in a mob, and d'ui soncthiiig ioivards preventing anybody else from doing so. 

We turn to Bacon and we find that he entertained precisely the 

same feelings. 

Dean Church says: 

Bacon had no sympathy with popular wants and claims; of popularity, of all 
that was called popular, he had the deepest suspicion and dislike; the opinions and 

* Swinburne, Study c/S/uik., p. 54. ^ Democratic I'/stns, p. Si. 

"Ibid., p. 54 ^White's Genius 0/ SItak., p. 298. 

^ Shak. Mind and Art. p. 284. 



THE POLITICS OF THE PLAYS. ,75 

the judgment of average men he despised, as a thinker, a politician and a courtier; 
the "malignity of the people" he thought great. " I do not love," he said, "the 
vfovd people." But he had a high idea of what was worthy of a king. 

II. Hk Despised the Class to which Shakspere Belonged. 

Shakespeare calls the laboring people: 
Mechanic slaves.' 

The fool multitude that choose by show, 

Not learning, more than the fond eye doth teach. - 

The inundation of mistempered humor. ■'■ 

The rude iiiultitude.^ 

The multitude of hinds and peasants.'' 

The hase vulgar.'' 

O base and obscure vulgar." 

Base peasants.* 

A habitation giddy and unsure 

Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.' 

A sort of vagabonds, rascals and run-aways, 

A scum of Bretagnes, and base lackey peasants."' 

The blunt monster with uncounted heads, 
The still discordant, wavering multitude." 

We shall see hereafter that nearly every one of the Shakespeare 
Plays was written to inculcate some special moral argument; to 
preach a lesson to the people that might advantage them. Coriolanus 
seems to have been written to create a wall and barrier of public 
opinion against that movement towards popular government which 
not long after his death plunged England into a long and bloody civil 
war. The whole argument of the play is the unfitness of a mob to 
govern a state. Hence all through the play we find such expressions 
as these: 

The plebeian multitude.'-' 

You common cry of curs.''' 

The mutable, rank-scented many.'-* 

You are they 
That made the air unwholesome, when you cast 
Your stinking, greasy caps, in hooting at 
Coriolanus' e.^ile.''' 

^Antony and Cleopatra, v, 2. ^ Lone s Labor Lost, i, 2. " 2d Henry /PT, Ind. 

^ Merchant 0/ I'enice, ii, 9. 'Ibid., iv, 1. ^'^ Coriolanus, ii, i. 

^ King John, v, i. ^ 2d Henry /'/., iv, 8. '^ Ibid., ill, 3. 

*3d Henry I'l., iii, 2. ^ 2d Henry //'., i, 3. • '■• Ibid., iv, 3. 

•''Ihid., iv, 4. ^^> Richard HI., v, 3. '^Coriolanus, iv, 6. 



I^O /-A'-IXC/.S BACON THE Ai'TtlOK 01-' J'HE I' J. A VS. 

Again he alludes to the plebeians as "those measles" whose 
contact would ''tetter" him. 

III. Hk Dk.spisks Tradesmen of All Kinds. 

But this contempt of the writer of the Plays was not confined 
to the mob. It extended to all trades-people. He says: 

Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen.' 

We turn to Bacon, and we find him referring to the common 

people as a scum. The same word is used in Shakespeare. Bacon 

speaks of 

The vulgar, to whom nothing moderate is grateful.'^ 

This is the same thought we find in Shakespeare : 

What would you have, you curs, 
That like nor peace nor war?'* 

Who deserves greatness. 
Deserves your hate; and your affections are 
A sick man's appetite, who desires most that 
Which would increase his evil.'' 

Again Bacon says: 

The ignorant and rude multitude.'' 

If fame be from the common people, it is commonly false and naught.*^ 

This is very much the thought expressed in Shakespeare: 



The fool multitude that choose by show. 

Not learning, more than the fond eye doth teach.' 



And also in 

He's loved of the distracted multitude. 

Who like not in their judgments, but their eyes.^ 

Bacon says: 

For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches and old women and 
impostors have had a competition with physicians.** 

And again he says: 

The envious and malignant disposition of the vulgar, for when fortune's favor- 
ites and great potentates come to ruin, then do the common people rejoice, setting, 
as it were, a crown upon the head of revenge.'" 

' Winter s Talc, iv, 3. " Essay Of Praise. 

"^ Wisdotn of the Ancients — Diotitedes. ' Merchant 0/ Venice, ii, 9. 

5 Coriolanus, i, i. " Hamlet, iv, 3. 

^Ibid., i, I. ^ A dvancetneni o_f Learning; book ii. 

' IViscioin 0/ the A ncients. '" Wisdom 0/ the A ncients — Xeiiusis. 



THE POLITICS OF THE PLAYS. 177 

And again he sa5^s: 

The nature of the vulgar, always swollen and malignant, still broaching new- 
scandals against superiors; . . . the same natural disposition of the people still 
leaning to the viler sort, being impatient of peace and tranquillity.' 

Says Shakespeare: 

That like not peace nor vvar.'^ 

And Bacon says again: 

He would never endure that the base multitude should frustrate the authority 
of Parliament.-' 

See how the same words are employed by both. Bacon says- 

The base multitude. 

Shakespeare says: 

The rude multitude — the base vulgar.* 
And the word malignant is a favorite with both. Shakespeare 
says: 

Thou liest, malignatit thing ! 

Malignant death.'' 

A malignant and turbaned Turk.** 
Bacon says: 

The envious and malignant disposition. 

The vulgar always swollen and malignant. 

Shakespeare says: 

The s7(<ollen surge.' 

Such swollen and hot discourse.* 

But it must be remembered that Bacon was brought up as an 
aristocrat — connected by blood with the greatest men of the king- 
dom; born in a royal palace, York Place; son of Elizabeth's Lord 
Chancellor. And it must not be forgotten that the populace of 
London of that day had but lately emerged from barbarism; 
they were untaught in habits of self-government; worshiping the 
court, sycophantic to everything above them; unlettered, rude, 
and barbarous; and were, indeed, very different from the popu- 
lace of the civilized world to-day. They doubtless deserved 
much of the unlimited contempt which Bacon showered upon 
them. 

' IVisdotn of the Ancients. ^ Tctit/>est, i, 2. ' Tempest, ii, 1. 

^ Coriotanus,i, 1. ^ Richard III., n, 2 ^ Troilus and Crcssiu,^ - 3- 

^ History of Henry VII. ^Othello, v, 2. 



1 78 FRA.VC/S /i.-lCO.V THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

IV. He was at the Samk Time a Philanthropist. 

But while the writer of the Plays feared the mob and despised 
the trades-people, with the inborn contempt of an aristocrat, he had a 
broad philanthropy which took in the whole human family, and his 
heart went out with infinite pity to the wretched and the suffering. 

Swinburne says: 

In Lear we have evidence of a sympathy with the mass of social misery more 
wide and deep and direct and bitter and tender than Shakespeare has shown else- 
where. ... A poet of revolution he is not, as none of his country in that genera- 
ation could have been; but as surely as the author of Julius Grj^rr has approved 
himself in the best and highest sense of the word at least potentially a republican, 
so surely has the author of King Lear avowed himself, in the only good and 
rational sense of the word, a spiritual if not a political democrat and socialist.' 

While Bacon's intellect would have revolted from such a hell- 
dance of the furies as the French Reign of Terror, whose excesses 
were not due to anything inherent in self-government, but to the 
degeneration of mankind, caused by ages of royal despotism; and 
while he abominated the acrid bigotry of the men of his own age, 
with whom liberty meant the right to burn those who differed from 
them: his sympathies w^ere nevertheless upon the side of an orderly, 
well-regulated, intelligent freedom, and strongly upon the side of 
everything that would lift man out of his miseries. 

Says Swinburne: 

Brutus is the very noblest figure of a typical and ideal republican in all the 
literature of the world.'-' 

Bacon was ready to stand up against the whole power of Queen 

Elizabeth, and, as a member of Parliament, defended the rights of 

that great body, even to the detriment of his own fortunes; but he 

did not believe, as he says in his History of Henry / Y/., that '' the 

base multitude should control Parliament " any more than the 

Oueen. And he gives us the same sentiment in Coriolaiiiis. Men- 

enius Agrippa, after telling the incensed Roman populace the fable 

of The Belly and the Members, draws this moral: 

The senators of Rome are this good belly, 
And you the mutinous members. . . . 

You shall find 
No public benefit which you receive 
But it proceeds, or comes, from them to you, 
Utd no ivay from yourselves.^ 

* Swinburne, . -I StU'i of S/iak., \>. 175. -Ibid., p. 150. ^ Ccriotamis.x, i. 



THE POLITICS OF THE PLAYS. 179 

And he teaches us an immortal lesson in Troilus and Cressida: 

Then everything includes itself in/carr, 
Power into will, will into appetite: 
And appetite, an tmivcrsal ico/f. 
So doubly seconded with will and power. 
Must make perforce an universal prej', 
And last, eat up itself. 

And in Haiiilct he says; 

By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken notice of it; the age is 
grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier 
that he galls his kibe.' 

Here we have one of Bacon's premonitions of the coming tem- 
pest which so soon broke over England; or, as he expresses it in 
Richard HI.: 

Before the days of change, still it is so; 
By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust 
Ensuing danger; as, by proof, we see 
The water swell before a boisterous storm.'' 

And again : 

And in such indexes, although small pricks 
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen 
The baby figure of the giant mass 
Of things to come at large. ^ 

Here, then, was indeed a strange compound: — an aristocrat 
that despised the mob and the work-people, but who, nevertheless, 
loved liberty; who admired the free oligarchy of Rome, arid hated 
the plebeians who asked for the same liberty their masters en- 
joyed; and who, while despising the populace, grieved over their 
miseries and would have relieved them. We read in Lear: 

Take physic, pomp; 
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel: 
So inayst thou shake the superjiux to them. 
And show the heavens more just. 

And again: 

Heavens, deal so still ! 
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, 
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see 
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly; 
So distriluitioii should undo exeess. 
And each man hare enough. 

And we turn to Bacon, and we find that through his whole life 
the one great controlling thought which directed all his labors was 

' Hamlet^ v, i. 2 l^ic/iaj-d Iff., ii, 3. •' Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 



i8o FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 

a belief that God had created him to help his fellow-men to- 
greater comfort and happiness. 
He says: 

Believing that 1 'auis horn for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of 
the commonwealth as a kind of common property, which, like the air and water, 
belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be chst 
served} 

Again he says: 

This work, which is for the bettering of men's bread and wine, which are the 
characters of temporal blessings and sacraments of eternal, I hope, by God's holy 
providence, may be ripened by Caesar's star.- 

Again he says: 

The state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine 
eyes: I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart.'' 

And in one of his prayers he says; 

To God the Father, God the Word, God the Holy Ghost, I address my most 
humble and ardent prayers, that, mindful of the miseries of man, and of this pil- 
grimage of life, of which the days are few and evil, they would open up yet new 
sources of refreshment from the fountains of good for the allei'iation of our 
sorro7i.<s} 

He also says that any man who " kindleth a light in nattire," 
by new thoughts or studies, " seems to me to be a propagator of 
the empire of man over the universe, a defender of liberty, a eou- 
(j tier or of neeessifiesf '' 

It would be indeed strange if two men in the same age should 
hold precisely the saine political views, with all these peculiar 
shadings and modifications. It would be indeed strange if the 
butcher's apprentice of Stratford should be filled with the most 
aristocratic prejudices against the common people; if the " vassal 
actor," who was legally a vagabond, and liable to the stocks and 
to branding and imprisonment, unless he practiced his degraded 
calling under the shadow of some nobleman's name, should bubble 
over with contempt for the tradesmen who were socially his 
superiors. And it would be still stranger if this butcher's appren- 
tice, while cringing to a class he did not belong to, and insulting 
the class he did belong to, would be so filled with pity for the 
wretchedness of the many, that he was ready to advocate a redis- 

' Preface to T/ie Intcrpretatioti of Nature. ■■ The IMasculiiie Birth of Time. 

^ Letter to the King. * The Interpretation of Nature. 

3 Prayer while Lord Chancellor. 



THE POLITICS OF THE PLAYS. iSr 

tribution of the goods of the world, so that each man might have 
enough! 

V. The Writer of the Plays Belonged, like Bacon, to the 

Essex ^action. 

But we go a step farther. While we find this complete identity 
between the views of Bacon and the writer of the Plays as to the 
generalities of political thought, we will see that they both belonged 
to the same political faction in the state. 

It is well known that Bacon was an adherent of the Essex party 
and opposed to the party of his uncle Burleigh, who had suppressed 
him all through the reign of Elizabeth. These two factions 
divided the poli^^ics of the latter portion of Elizabeth's reign. 
The first gathered to itself all the discontented elements of 
the kingdom, \.\\^ young inoi, the able, the adventurous, who flocked 
to Essex as to the cave of Adullam. They were in favor of brilliant 
courses, of wars, of adventures; as opposed to " the canker of a calm 
world and a long peace," advocated by the great Lord Treasurer, 
Bacon was undoubtedly for years the brains of this party. 

The writer of the Plays belonged to this party also. He was a 
member of the Lord Chamberlain's company of actors. The Lord 
Chamberlain's theater represented the aristocratic side of public 
questions; the Lord Admiral's company (Henslowe's) the plebeian 
side: the one was patronized by the young bloods, the gallants; the 
other by the tradesmen and 'prentices. It was a time when, in the 
words of Simpson, 

The civil and military elements were pleading for precedence at the national 
bar: the one advocating age and wisdom in council and industry and obedience in 
the nation: the other crying out for youthful counsel, a dashing policy, a military 
organization and an offensive war. The one was the party of the Cecils, the other 
that of the Earl of Essex." 

Riimelin argues that 

Shakespeare wrote ioxxh^ jeiincsse don'e of the Elizabethan theater, and that he 
already saw the Royalist and Roundhead parties in process of formation, and was 
opposed to the Puritan hoitrs^episic. Shakespeare was a pure Royalist, and an 
adherent of the purest water to the court party and the nobles. 

The relations of Shakespeare to Essex, as manifested in the 
Plays, were as close as those of Bacon. Simpson says of the play 

'^ School of Sliak., vol. i, p. 155. 



t82 FRANCIS BACOX TIIK AUTHOR OF 'FHE PLAYS. 

of Sir Thomas Stuckley, which he believes to have been an early 
work of Shakspere: 

The play is a glorification of Stuckley as an idol of the military or Essex party, 
to which Shakspere is known to huTc leant. . . . The character of Lord Sycophant, 
contained therein, is a stinging satire on Essex ' (Shakspere's hero and patron) great 
enemy, Lord Cobham.' 

Speaking of the Plays which appeared at Shakspere's theater^ 
Simpson says: 

When we regard them as a whole, those of the Lord Chamberlain's company 
are characterized by common sense, moderation, naturalness, and the absence of 
bombast, and by a great artistic liberty of form, of matter and of criticism; at the 
same time they favor liberty in politics and toleration in religion, and are consist- 
ently opposed to the Cecilian ideal in policy, while they as consistently favor that 
school to 7ohich Essex is attached. ^ 

And it must not be forgotten that these striking admissions are- 
made by one who had not a doubt that Shakspere was Shake- 
speare. 

When we turn to the Plays we find a distinct attempt to glorify 
Essex. Camden says: 

About the end of March (1599) the Earl of Essex set forward for Ireland, and 
was accompanied out of London with a fine appearance of nobility and gentry, 
and the most cheerful huzzas of the common people. 

Essex returned to London on the 28th of September of the 

same year; and in the meantime appeared the play of Henry V.^ 

and in the chorus of the fifth act we have these words: 

But now behold. 
In the quick forge and working-house of thought, 
How London doth pour out her citizens ! 
The mayor and all his brethren, in best sort — 
Like to the senators of antique Rome, 
With the plebeians swarming at their heels — 
Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in: 
As, by a lower but by loving likelihood, 
Were now the general of our gracious empress, 
(As in good time he may), from Ireland coming, 
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword, 
How many would the peaceful city quit 
To welcome him ? 

The play of 2d Henry J V. and that of Henry V. constitute a deifi- 
cation of military greatness; and the representation of that splen- 
did English victory, Agincourt — the Waterloo of the olden age — 
was meant to fire the blood of the London audiences with admira- 

^ Scliool pf SItak., vol. i, p. 10. 'Ibid., vol. i, p. 19. 



THE POLinCS OF THE PLA YS. 183 

tion for that spirit of military adventure of which Essex was the 
type and representative. 

Neither must it be forgotten that it was Southampton, the 
bosom friend of Essex, who shared w4th him in his conspiracy to 
seize the person of the Queen, and who nearly shared the block 
with him, remaining in the Tower until after the death of Eliza- 
beth. And it was to Southampton that Shakespeare dedicated 
Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Liicrecc. Bacon was the inti- 
mate friend and correspondent of Southampton ; they were both 
members of the law-school of Gray's Inn, and Shakesoeare dedi- 
cated his poems to him. 

VI. The Writer of the Plays, like Bacon, Hated Coke. 

If there was any one man whom, above all others, Bacon despised 
and disliked it was that great but brutal lawyer. Coke. And in the 
Plays we find a distinct reference to Coke: 

Sir Toby. Go write it in a martial hand, be curst and brief; . . . taunt him 
with the license of ink: if thou thou' st him some thrice it shall not be amiss. . . . 
Let there be gall enough in thy ink though thou write with a goose pen, no matter.' 

Theobald and Knight, and all the other commentators, agree 
that this is an allusion to Coke's virulent speech against Sir Walter 
Raleigh, on the trial for treason. The Attorney-General exclaimed 
to pir Walter: 

All he did was by thy instigation, //-'('// viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor. 

•Here is the thou thrice used. Theobald says it shows Shake- 
speare's "detestation of Coke." 

Let us pass to another consideration. 

VII. The Writer of the Plays, like Bacon, Disliked Lord 

COBHAM. 

Lord Cobham was one of the chief enemies of Essex. Spedding 
says: 

About the same time another quarrel arose upon the appointment of the ward- 
enship of the Cinque Ports, vacant by the death of Lord Cobham, whose eldest 
son, an enemy of the Earl, was one of the competitors. Essex wished Sir Robert 
Sydney to have the place, but, finding the Queen resolute in favor of the new Lord 
Cobham, and " seeing he is likely to carry it away, I mean (said the Earl) resolutely 
to stand for it myself against him. . . . My Lord Treasurer is come to court, and 

' Twelfth Nighty iii, 1. 



184 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

we sat in council this afternoon in his chamber. I made it known unto them 
that I had just cause to hate the Lord Cobham, for his villainous dealing and abus- 
ing of me; that he hath been my chief persecutor most unjustly; that in him there 
is no worth." ' 

This was in the year 1597. 

And when we turn to the Plays we find that the writer sought 
to cover the family of Lord Cobham with disgrace and ridicule, 
Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

The first part of Henry IV., the appearance of which on the stage may be con- 
fidently assigned to the spring of -the year ijgy, was followed immediately, or a few 
months afterward, by the composition of the second part. It is recorded that both 
these plays were very favorably received by Elizabeth; the Queen especially relish- 
ing the character of Falstaff, and they were most probably amongst the dramas 
represented before that sovereign in the Christmas holidays of 1597-8. At this 
time, or then very recently, the renowned hero of the Boar's Head Tavern had 
been introduced as Sir John Oldcastle, but the Queen ordered Shakespeare to alter 
the name of the character. This step was taken in consequence of the representa- 
tions of sof?ie viember or viembers of the Cobham family, who had taken offense at 
their illustrious aneestor. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, the Protestant tnartyr, 
being disparagingly introduced on the stage; and, accordingly, in or before the Feb- 
ruary of the following year, Falstaff took the place of Oldcastle, the former being 
probably one of the few names invented by Shakespeare. . . . The subject, how- 
ever, was viewed by the Cobhams in a very serious light. This is clearly shown, 
not merely by the action taken by the Queen, but by the anxiety exhibited by 
Shakespeare, in the Epilogue to the second part, to place the matter beyond all 
doubt, by the explicit declaration that there was in Falstaff no kind of association, 
satirical or otherwise, with the martyr Oldcastle.- 

The language of the Epilogue is: 

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, 
our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you 
merry with fair Katharine of France, where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall 
die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle 
liied a martyr, and this is not the man. 

And yet, there seems to have been a purpose, despite this 
retraction, to affix the stigma of Falstaff's disreputable career to 
the ancestor of the Cobham family; for in the first part of Henry 
IV. we find this expression: 

Falstaff. Thou say'st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most 
sweet wench ? 

Prince Henry. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the Castle.* 

Says Knight, as a foot-note upon this sentence: 

The passage in the text has given rise to the notion that Sir John Oldcastle 
was pointed at in the character of Falstafif. 

' Letters and Life, vol. ii, p. 48. "^ Oti/!inex I.i/e 0/ Slink., p. 98. ' Act ii, scene 2. 



THE POl.JTICS OF THE FLA YS. 



185 



Oldys remarks: 



Upon whom does the horsing of a dead corpse on Falstaff's back reflect? 
Whose honor suffers, in his being forced, by the unexpected surprise of his armed 
plunderers, to surrender his treasure? Whose policy is impeached by his creeping 
into a bucking basket to avoid the storms of a jealous husband? 

Fuller says, in his Chiircli History: 

Stage-poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, 
the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion, 
a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is. Sir John Falstaff hath 
relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted buffoon 
in his place. 

It seems to me, there can be no doubt that the author of the 
Plays disliked the Cobham family, and sought to degrade them, by 
bringing their ancestor on the stage, in the guise of a disreputable, 
thieving, cowardly old rascal, who is thumped, beaten and cast 
into the Thames ** like a litter of blind puppies." And even when 
compelled by the Queen to change the name of the character, the 
writer of the Plays puts into the mouth of Prince Hal the expres- 
sion, "My old lad of the castle," to intimate to the multitude that 
Falstaff was still, despite his change of name, Sir John Oldcastle, 
the ancestor of the enemy of Bacon's great friend and patron, the 
Earl of Essex. 

VIII. The Writer of the Plays was Hostile to Queen 

Elizabeth. 

Let us turn to another point. 

We have seen that the writer of the Plays was, by his family 
traditions and alliances, and his political surroundings, a Protest- 
ant. Being such, it would follow that he would be an admirer 
of Elizabeth, the representative and bulwark of Protestantism in 
England and on the continent. But we find that, for some 
reason, this Protestant did not love Elizabeth; and although he 
sugars her over with compliments in Henry VIII., just as Bacon 
did in his letters, and probably in his sonnets, yet there was 
beneath this fair show of flattery a purpose to deal her most 
deadly blows. 

If the divorce of Henry VIII. was based on vicious and adulter- 
ous motives, the marriage of the King with Anne Boleyn was dis- 
creditable, to say the least. And remembering this we find that 



J 86 FA\4.VC/S BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

the play represents Anne as a frivolous person to whom the King 
was drawn by his passions. 
We read: 

Suffolk. How is the King employed? 

Chamberlain. I left him private, 

Full of sad thoughts and troubles. 

Norfolk. What's the cause? 

Chamberlain. It seems, the marriage with his brother's wife 

Has crept too near his conscience. 

Suffolk. No, his conscience 

Has crept too near another lady. 

Norfolk. 'Tis so; 

This is the Cardinal's doing. ^ 

Birch says: 

The scene between the Old Lady and Anne Boleyn seems introduced to make 
people laugh at the hypocrisy and Protestant conscience of Anne, mixed up with 
the indecency abjured in the prologue.''' , 

The Old Lady says: 

And so would you 
For all this spice of your hypocrisy: 
You that have so fair parts of woman on you, 
Have too a woman's heart; which ever yet 
Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty; 
Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts, 
(Saving your mincing), the capacity 
Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive 
If you might please to stretch it.''' 

Knight argues that the play could not have been produced dur- 
ing the reign of Elizabeth. He says: 

The memory of Henry VHI., perhaps, was not cherished by her with any deep 
affection; but would she, who in her dyiiig hour is reported to have said, " My 
seat has been the seat of kings," allow the frailties, and even the peculiarities of her 
father, to be made a public spectacle? Would she have borne that his passion for 
her mother should have been put forward in the strongest way by the poet — that 
is, in the sequence of the dramatic action — as the impelling motive for the divorce 
from Katharine? Would she have endured that her father . . . should be repre- 
sented in the depth of his hypocrisy gloating over his projected divorce with — 

But conscience, conscience, — 
Oh! 'tis a tender place, and I must leave her? 

Would she have been pleased with the jests of the Old Lady to Anne, upon her 
approaching elevation — her title — her "thousand pound a year" — and all to be 
instantly succeeded by the trial-scene — that magnificent exhibition of the purity, 
the constancy, the fortitude, the grandeur of soul, the self-possession of the "most 
poor woman and a stranger" that her mother had supplanted? 

' Act ii, scene 2. ' IViiloso/'Jiy am/ Religion of Shnic, p. 346. ' //riiiy / 7//., ii, 3. 



THE POLITICS OF THE PLA VS. 187 

Nothing could be grander than the light in which Katharine is 

set. Henry himself says: 

Thou art, alone, 
(If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness, 
Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government — 
• Obeying in commanding — and thy parts 
Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out), 
The queen of earthly queens.' 

Anne is made to say of her: 

Here's the pang that pinches. 
His highness having lived so long with her; and she 
So good a lady, that no tongue could ever 
Pronounce dishonor of her — by my life 
She never knew harm-doing . . . after this process 
To give her the avaunt ! // is a pity 
Would 11107'e a ntoiister.'- 

And then we have that scene, declared by Dr. Johnson to 
be the grandest Shakespeare ever wrote, in which angels come 
upon the stage, and, in the midst of heavenly music, crown 
Katharine with a garland of saintship, the angelic visitors bow- 
ing to her: 

Katharine. Saw you not, even now, a blessed troupe 

Invite me to a banquet, whose bright faces 

Cast thousand beams upon me like the sun ? 

They promised me eternal happiness. 

And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel 

I am not worthy yet to wear; I shall 

Assuredly.'* 

In the epilogue Shakespeare says: 

I fear 
All the expected good we're like to hear 
For this play at this time, is only in 
The merciful construction of good women. 
For such a one uw showed them. 

Upon this Birch says: 

This was honest in Shakespeare. He did not put the success of the play upon 
the flattery of the great or of Protestant prejudices, but upon the exhibition of one 
good woman, of the opposite party, a Roman Catholic, a Spaniard, and the 
mother of bloody Mary. 

In fact, Shakespeare, strange to say, introduces into the play 
high praise of this same " bloody Mary," long after she was dead 
and her sect powerless. He puts it in the mouth of Queen Kath- 

' Henry VIIL, ii, 4. " Ibid., ii, 3. ^ Act iv, scene 2. 



1 88 FAANCJS JiACO.V THE A U Til OK OF THE PLAYS. 

arine, who, telling Cajnu ins the contents of her last letter to the 
King, says: 

In which I have commended to his goodness 

The model of our chaste loves, his young daughter: 

The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her ! 

Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding; 

(She is ycjung and of a noble, vtodest nature; 

I hope she will deserve well); and a little 

To love her for her mother's sake, that loved him 

Heaven knows how dearly. 

The words of praise of Mary are not found in the letter which 
Katharine actually sent to the King: they are an interpolation of the 
poet ! 

If Henry put away his true wife, not for any real scruples of 
conscience, but simply from an unbridled, lustful desire to possess 
the young and beautiful but frivolous Anne; and if to reach this end 
he overrode the limitations of the church to which he belonged, 
then, indeed, Elizabeth was little more than tlie bastard which her 
enemies gave her out. A play written to make a saint of Katharine, 
and a sensual brute of Henry, could certainly bring only shame 
and disgrace to Anne and her daughter. 

What motive could the man of Stratford have to thus contrive 
debasement for Elizabeth's memory? Why should he follow her 
beyond the grave for revenge? What wrongs had she inflicted on 
him? He came to London a poor outcast; during her reign he 
had risen to wealth and respectability. If tradition is to be 
believed, she had noticed and honored him. What grievance 
could he carry away with him to Stratford ? Why should it be 
noticed by contemporaries that when Elizabeth died the muse of 
Shakespeare breathed not one mournful note of divine praise over 
her tomb? Chettle, in his England's Mourning Garment, thus re- 
proaches Shakespeare that his verse had not bewailed his own and 
England's loss: 

Mor doth the silver-tongued Melicert 

Drop from his honied muse one sable tear, 

To mourn her death that graced his desert, 

And to his lines opened her royal eare. 

Shepherd, remember our Elizabeth, 

And sing her rape, done by the Tarquin, Death. 

But as soon as the Tarquin Death had taken Elizabeth, Shake- 
speare proceeded to show that she was conceived in lust and born 



THE POLITICS OF THE I'l.A VS. 



189 



in injustice; that her father was a powerful and hypocritical brute; 
her mother an ambitious worldling; and that the woman she had 
supplanted was a saint, who passed, upon the wings of cherishing 
angels, directly to the portals of eternal bliss. 

And it will be noted that, although Bacon wrote an essay called 
T/ie Felicities of Queen Elizabeth^ it was rather, as its name implies, 
a description of the happy circumstances that conjoined to make 
her reign great and prosperous, than a eulogy of her character as 
admirable or beautiful. He mentions the fact that she 

Was very willing to be courted, wooed and to have sonnets made in her com- 
mendation, and that she continued this longer than was decent for her years. 

And he says, in anticipation of such a criticism as I make: 

Now, if any man shall allege that against me, which was once said to Ceesar, 
"we see what we may admire, but we would fain see what we could commend;" 
certainly, for my part, I hold true admiration to be the highest degree of com- 
mendation. 

But he did not commend her. 

And if we turn to the career of Bacon, we shall find that he had 
ample cause to hate Elizabeth. 
Macaulay says: 

To her it was owing that, while younger men, not superior to him in extrac- 
tion, and far inferior to him in every kind of personal merit, were filling the high- 
est offices of the state, adding manor to manor, rearing palace after palace, he was 
lying at a sponging-house for a debt of three hundred pounds ' 

So long as Elizabeth lived, Bacon was systematically repressed 
and kept in the most pitiful poverty. The base old woman, know- 
ing his condition, would see him embarrass himself still further 
with costly gifts, given her on her birthdays, and rewarded him 
with empty honors that could not keep bread in his mouth, or the 
constable from his door. Beneath the poor man's placid exterior 
of philosophical self-control, there was a very volcano of wrath and 
hate ready to burst forth. 

Dean Church says: 

But she still refused him promotion. He was without an official position in 
the Queen's service, and he never was allowed to have it.'- 

And again: 

Burleigh had been strangely niggardly in what he did to help his brilliant 
nephew But it is plain that he [his son] early made up his m.ind to keep 

' Mmaiday^s Essays, Bacon, p. 254. - Bacon, p. 52. 



igo J'-A'.LVC/S B.ICO.y TJJl: AiTIJOK OF THE PLAYS. 

Bacon in the liackground. . . . Nothing can account for Bacon's strange 
failure for so long a time to reach his due place in the public service, but the secret 
hostility, whatever may be the cause, of Cecil.' 

This adverse influence kept Bacon in poverty and out of place 
as long as Cecil lived, which was for some years after the death of 
Elizabeth. Bacon writes to the King upon Cecil's death a letter, 
of which Dean Church says: 

■ Bacon was in a bitter mood, and the letter reveals, for the first time, what was 
really in Bacon's heart about "the great subject and great servant," of whom he 
had just written so respectfully, and with whom he had been so closely connected 
for most of his life. The fierceness which had been gathering for years of neglect 
and hindrance, under that placid and patient exterior, broke out." 

How savagely does Bacon's pent-up wrath burst from him when 
writing to King James about his cousin's death: 

I protest to God, though I be not superstitious, when I saw your Majesty's 
book against Vorstius and Arminius, and noted your zeal to deliver the majesty of 
God from the vain and indign comprehensions of heresy and degenerate philos- 
ophy, as you had by your pen formerly endeavored to deliver kings from the 
usurpations of Rome, pcrciihit il/ico aninniiii that God would set shortly upon you 
sotyie visible favor, and let Die not live if I thought not of the taking azvay of that 
man} 

The Cecils ruled Elizabeth, and we may judge from this 

passionate outburst how deeply and bitterly, for many years. 

Bacon hated the Virgin Queen and her advisers; how much more 

bitterly and deeply because his wretched poverty had constrained 

him to cringe and fawn upon the objects of his contempt 

and wrath. He expressed his own inmost feelings when he put 

into the mouth of Hamlet as the strongest of provocations to 

suicide: 

The law's delay, 

yVie insolence of office, and the spurns 

That patient merit of the nnworthy takes. 

How bitterly does he break forth in I.cdr : 

Behold the great image of authority I .1 dog's obeyed in office ! 

And again, in Measure for A/rasiirc : 

Man, proud man, 
Drest in a little brief authority, 

. . . Like an angry ape. 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
As make the angels weep. 

' Ibid., p. 59. '^ Ibid., p. 90. ■ ^ Letter to the Kiny , 161-2. 



THE POLITICS OF THE PLAYS. 191 

And we seem to hear the cry of his own long disappointed heart 

in the words of Wolsey: 

O, how wretched 
Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favors! 
There is, between that smile he would aspire to, 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have. 

And Hamlet, his alter ri^o, expresses the self-loathing with which 
he contemplated the abasements of genius to power: 

No; let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp. 
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, 
Where thrift may follow fawning. 

These words never came from the. smooth surface of a prosper- 
ous life: they were the bitter outgrowth of a turbulent and suffering 
heart. When you would find words that sting like adders — exple- 
tives of immortal wrath and hate — you must seek them in the 
depths of an outraged soul. 

What was there in the life of the Stratford man to justify such 
expressions? He had his bogus coat-of-arms to make him respect- 
able; he owned the great house of Stratford, and could brew beer 
in it, and sue his neighbors, to his heart's content. He fled away 
from the ambitions of the court to the odorous muck-heaps and 
the pyramidal dung-hills of Stratford; and if any grief settled upon 
his soul he could (as tradition tells us) get drunk for three days at 
a time to assuage it. 

IX. Richard III. Rkpresented Robert Cecil. 

There is another very significant fact. 

The arch-enemy of Bacon and of Essex was Sir Robert Cecil, 
Baton's first cousin, the child of his mother's sister. He was the 
chief means of eventually bringing Essex' head to the block. We 
have just seen how intensely Bacon hated him, and with what good 
reason. * 

He was a man of extraordinary mental power, derived, in part, 
from the same stock (the stock of Sir Anthony Cook, tutor to King 
Edward IV.) from which Bacon had inherited much of his ability. 
But, in his case, the blood of Sir Anthony had been crossed by the 
shrewd, cunning, foxy, cold-blooded, selfish, persistent stock of his 
father, Sir William Burleigh, Elizabeth's Lord Treasurer; and 



192 



FA'AXC/S BACON THE AUTHOK OF THE PLAYS. 



hence, instead of a great poet and philosopher, as in Bacon's case, 
the outcome was a statesman and courtier of extraordinary keen- 
ness and abiHty, and a very sleuth-hound of dissembling persist- 
ency and cunning. 

He had the upper hand of Bacon, and he kept it. He sat on his 
neck as long as he lived. Even after the death of Elizabeth and 
the coming-in of the new King, he held that mighty genius in the 
mire. He seemed to have possessed some secret concerning Bacon, 
discreditable to him, which he imparted to King James, and this 
hindered his advancement after the death of the Queen, notwith- 
standing the fact that Bacon had belonged to the faction which, 
prior to Elizabeth's death, was in favor of James as her successor. 
This is intimated by Dean Church; he says: 

Cecil had, indeed, but little claim on Bacon's gratitude; he had spoken him fair 
in public, and no doubt in secret distrusted and thwarted him. But to the last Bacon 
did not choose to acknowledge this. Had James disclosed somctJiing of his dead servant 
[Cecil], ivho left some strange secrets behind him, udiich sho'wed his hostility to Bacon ? ' 

Was it for this that Bacon rejoiced over his death ? Was the 
secret an intimation to King James that Bacon was the real author 
of the Plays that went about in the name of Shakespeare? What- 
ever it was, there was something potent enough to suppress Bacon 
and hold him down, even for some time after Cecil's death. 

Dean Church says: 

He was still kept out of the inner circle of the council, but from the moment 
of Salisbury's [Cecil's] death, he became a much more important person. He still 
sued for advancement, and still met with disappointment; the "mean men" still 
rose above him. . . . But Bacon's hand and counsel appear more and more in 
important matters. - 

Now it is known that Cecil was a man of infirm health, and 
that he 7C'as a /ni/nf-lhicfc. 

We turn to the Shakespeare Plays, and we ask: What is the 
most awful character, the most absolutely repulsive and detestable 
character, the character without a single redeeming, or beautify- 
ing, or humanizing trait, in all the range of the Plays? And the 
answer is: The crook-backed monster, Richard III. 

Richard III. was a satire on Bacon's cousin, Robert Cecil. 

To make the character more dreadful, the poet has drawn it in 
colors even darker than historical truth would justify. 

' Bacon, p. 02. ' Ibid., p. 93. 



THE POLITICS OF THE FLA YS. 



193 



Like Cecil, Richard is able, shrewd, masterful, unscrupulous, 
ambitious; determined, rightly or wrongly, to rule the kingdom. 
Like Cecil, he can crawl and cringe and dissemble, when it is neces- 
sary, and rule with a rod of iron when he possesses the power. 

Here we have a portrait of Cecil. 




Sir Robert Cecil. 

Was the expression of that face in Bacon's mind when he wrote 
those lines, which T have just quoted ? 

Man, proud man, 
Drest in a little brief authority, 

. . . like an angry ape. 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
As makes the angels weep. 

The expression of Cecil's countenance is, to my mind, actually 
ape-like. 

The man who has about him any personal deformity never ceases 
to be conscious of it. Byron could not forget his club-foot. What a 
terrible revenge it was when Bacon, under the disguise of the irre- 
sponsible play-actor, Shakspere, set on the boards of the Curtain The- 
ater the all-powerful courtier and minister, Sir Robert Cecil, in the 
character of that other hump-back, the bloody and loathsome Duke 
of Gloster? How the adherents of Essex must have whispered it 
among the multitude, as the crippled Duke, with his hump upon his. 



194 /■J'! A A CIS BACO.V THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

shoulder, came upon tlie stage — "That's Cecil!" And how they 
must have applied Richard's words of self-description to another? 

I that am curtailed of this fair proportion, 

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time 

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, 

And that so lamely and unfashionable 

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them — 

Why I, in this weak piping time of peace. 

Have no delight to pass away the time, 

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun. 

And descant on mine own deformity. 

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover 

To entertain these fair, well-spoken days, 

I am determined to prove a villain, 

And hate the idle pleasures of these days. '^ 

And these last lines express the very thought with which Bacon 
opens his essay On Deformity. 

Deformed persons are commonly even with nature; for as nature hath d(}ne ill 
by them, so do they by nature, being for the most part (as the Scripture saith) " void 
of natural affection; " and so they have their revenge of nature. 

And we seem to see the finger of Bacon pointing toward his 
cousin, in these words: 

Whoever, hath anything fixed in his person that doth induce contempt, hath 
also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and deliver himself from scorn; therefore 
all deformed persons are e.xtreme bold, first, as in. their own defense, as being 
exposed to scorn, but in process of time by a general habit. Also it stirreth in 
them industry, and especially of this kind, to watch and observe the weaknesses of 
others, that they may have somewhat to repay. Again, in their superiors it 
quencheth jealousy towards them, as persons that they think they may at pleasure 
despise; and it layeth their competitors and emulators asleep, as never believing 
they should be in possibility of advancement till they see them in possession, so 
that upon the matter, in a great wit, deformity is an advantage to rising. 

Speaking of the death of Cecil, Hepworth Dixon says: 

And when Cecil passes to his rest, a new edition of the Essays, under cover of 
a treatise on Deformity, paints in true and bold lines, but without one harsh touch, 
the genius of the man. . . . Every one knows the portrait; yet no one can pro- 
nounce this picture of a small, shrewd man of the world, a clerk in soul, without 
a spark of fire, a dart of generosity in his nature, unfair or even unkind,' 

One can conceive how bitterly the dissembling, self-controlled 
Cecil must have writhed under the knowledge that the Essex party, 
in the Essex theater, occupied by the Essex company of actors, and 
filled daily with the adherents of Essex, had placed him on the 

' Personal If isiory of Lord Bacon, pp. 193, 204. 



THE POLITICS OF THE PLAYS. 195 

boards, with all his deformity upon his back, and made him the object 
of the ribald laughter of the swarming multitude, "the scum" of 
London. As we will find hereafter Queen Elizabeth saying, " Know 
ye not I am Richard the Second?" so we may conceive Cecil say- 
ing to the Queen: "Know ye not that I am Richard the Third?" 

And if he knew, or shrewdly suspected, that his cousin, Francis 
Bacon, was the real author of the Plays, and the man who had so 
terribly mocked his physical defects, we can understand why he 
used all his powers, as long as he lived, to hold him down; and, as 
Church suspects, even blackened him in the King's esteem, so that his 
revenge might transcend the limits of his own frail life. And we can 
understand the exultation of Bacon when, at last, death loosened 
from his throat the fangs of his powerful and unforgiving adversary. 

In conclusion and recapitulation I would say that I find the 
political identities between Bacon and the writer of the Plays to be 
as follows: 

Both were aristocrats. 

Both despised the mob. 

Both contemned tradesmen. 

Both loved liberty. 

Both loved feudalism. 

Both pitied the miseries of the people. 

Both desired the welfare of the people. 

Both foresaw and dreaded an uprising of the lower classes. 

Both belonged to the military party. 

Both hated Lord Cobham. 

Both were adherents of Essex. 

Both tried to popularize Essex. 

Both were friends of Southampton. 

Both hated Coke. 

Both, although Protestant, had some strong antipathy against 
Oueen Elizabeth. 

Both refused to eulogize her character after death. 

Both, though aristocratic, were out of power and bitter against 
those in authority. 

Both hated Robert Cecil. 

Surely, surely, we are getting the two heads under one hat — 
and that the hat of the great philosopher of Verulam. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE RELIGION OF THE FLA YS. 

I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not. 

As i'ou Like It, z\ 4, 

THE religious world of Elizabeth was divided into two great 
and antagonistic sects: Catholics and Protestants; and the 
latter were, in turn, separated into the followers of the state relig- 
ion and various forms of dissent. 

Religion in that day was an earnest, palpable reality: society 
was set against itself in hostile classes; politics, place, government, 
legislation — all hinged upon religion. In this age of doubt and 
indifference, we can hardly realize the feelings of a pec^ple to whom 
the next world was as real as this world, and who were ready to die 
agonizing deaths, in the flames of Smithfield, for their convictions 
upon questions of theology. 

We are told that William Shakspere of Stratford died a Catholic. 
We have this upon the authority of Rev. Mr. Davies, who says, writ- 
ing after 1688, " he died a Papist." Upon the question of the politics 
of a great man, the leader of either one of the political parties of his 
neighborhood is likely to be well informed; it is in the line of his 
interests and thoughts. Upon the question of the religion of the one 
great man of Stratford, we may trust the testimony of the clergyman 
of the parish. He could hardly be mistaken. There can be little 
doubt that William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon died a Catholic. 

But of what religion was the man who wrote the Plays? 

This question has provoked very considerable discussion. He 
has been claimed alike by Protestants and Catholics. 

To my mind it is very clear that the writer of the Plays was a 

Protestant. And this is the view of Dowden. He says: 

Shakespeare has been proved to belong to each communion to the satisfaction of 
contending theological zealots. . . . But, tolerant as his spirit is, it is certain that 
the spirit of Protestantism animates and breathes through his writings.' 

What are the proofs ? 

1 Dowden, Shak. Mind anii Art, p. 33. 

196 



THE RELIGION OF I' HE PLAYS. 197 

I. He is Opposed to the Papal Supremacy. 

/' 

The play of King John turns largely upon the question of patri- 
otic resistance to the temporal power of the Pope; and this is not 
a necessary incident of the events of the time, for the poet, to point 
his moral, antedates the great quarrel between John and the Pope 
by six years. 

He represents King John, upon Ascension Day, yielding up his 

crown to Pandulph, the Pope's legate, and receiving it back, with 

these words: 

Take again 
From this, my hand, as holding of the Pope, 
Your sovereign greatness and authority.' 

In scene 3 of act iii, he makes Pandulph demand of the King 
why he keeps Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, out of 
his see; and King John replies: 

What earthly name to interrogatories 

Can task the free breath of a sacred king? 

Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name 

So slight, unworthy and ridiculous. 

To charge me to an answer, as the Pope. 

Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England 

Add this much more: That no Italian priest 

Shall tithe or toll in our dominions; 

But as we under heaven are supreme head, 

So under him, that great supremacy. 

Where we do reign, we will alone uphold, 

W' ithout the assistance of a mortal hand: 

So tell the Pope; all reverence set apart, 

To him and his usurped authority. 

King Philip. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this. 

King John. Though you, and all the kings of Christendom, 

Are led so grossly by this meddling priest. 

Dreading the curse that money may buy out; 

And, by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, 

Purchase corrupted pardon of a man. 

Who, in that sale, sells pardon from himself; 

Though you, and all the rest, so grossly led. 

This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish; 

Yet I, alone, alone do me oppose. 

Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes. 

It is scarcely to be believed that a Catholic could have written 
these lines. 

^Kiiig John, V, 1. 



iy<S 



FRANCIS BACOX THE AUTHOK OJ- THE TLAYS. 



And it must be remembered that King John is depicted in the 
play as a most despicable creature; and his eventual submission of 
the liberties of the crown and the country, to the domination of a 
foreign power, is represented as one of the chief ingredients in 
making up his shameful character. 

It is needless to say that Bacon had very strong views upon this 

question of the Pope's sovereignty over England. He says in the 

Charge against Talbot : 

Nay all princes of both religions, for it is a common cause, do stand, at this 
day [in peril], by the spreading and enforcing of this furious and pernicious opinion 
of the Pope's temporal power. 

II. He Honored and Respected Cranmer. 

But it is in the play of Henry J^III. that the religious leanings 
of the writer are most clearly manifested. 

It is to be remembered that it was in this reign that Protestant- 
ism was established in England, and the man who above all others 
was instrumental in bringing about the great change was Thomas 
Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury. He, 
above all other men, was hated by the Catholics. He it was who 
had sanctioned the divorce of Henry from Katharine; he it was who 
had delivered the crown to Anne upon the coronation; he had sup- 
ported the suppression of the monasteries; he had persecuted the 
Catholic prelates and people, sending numbers to the stake; and 
when the Catholics returned to power, under Mary, one of the first 
acts of the government was to burn him alive opposite Baliol Col- 
lege. It is impossible that a Catholic writer of the next reign could 
have gone out of his way to defend and praise Cranmer, to repre- 
sent him as a good and holy man, and even as an inspired prophet. 
And yet all this we find in the play of Henry VJII.; the play is, in 
fact, in large part, an apotheosis of Cranmer. 

In act fifth we find the King sending for him. He assures hin. 

that he is his friend, but that grave charges have been made against 

him, and that he must go before the council for trial, and he gives 

him his ring, to be used in an appeal, in case the council find him 

guilty. The King says: 

Look, the good man weeps ! 
He's honest on mine honor. God's blest mother I 
I swear he is true-hearted; and a soul 
None better in my kingdom. 



THE RELIGION OF THE PLA YS. i qq 

The council proceed to place Cranmer under arrest, with intent 
to send him to the Tower, when he exhibits the King's ring and 
makes his appeal. The King enters frowning, rebukes the perse- 
cutors of Cranmer, and says to him: 

Good man, sit down. Now let me see the proudest, 

He that dares most, but wag: his finger at thee. . . . 

Was it discretion, lords, to let this man, 

This good man (few of you deserve that title). 

This honest man, wait like a lousy foot-boy 

At chamber-door? . . . 

Well, well, my lords, respect him. 

Take him and use him well, he's worthy of it. 

I will say thus much for him, if a prince 

May be beholden to a subject, I 

Am, for his love and service, so to him. 

All this has no necessary coherence with the plot of the play, 
but is dragged in to the filling up of two scenes. 

And, in the last scene of the play, Cranmer baptizes the Princess 

Elizabeth, and is inspired by Heaven to prophesy: 

Let me speak, sir, 
For Heaven now bids me. 

And he proceeds to foretell her future long life and greatness. 

He says: 

In her days, every man shall eat in safety. 
Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing 
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors; 
God shall be truly known. 

It is not conceivable that one who was a Catholic, who regarded 
with disapproval the establishment of the new religion, and who 
looked upon Cranmer as an arch-heretic, worthy of the stake and 
of hell, could have written such scenes, when there was nothing in 
the plot of the play itself which required it. 

The passages in the play which relate to Cranmer are drawn 

from Fox's Book of Martyrs, and the prose version is followed 

almost literally in the drama; but, strange to say, there is in the 

historical work no place wherein the King speaks of Cranmer as a 

"good" man. All this is interpolated by the dramatist. We have in 

the play: 

Good man, sit down. 

This good man. 

This honest man. 

Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart. Etc, 



200 FJ^ANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

There is not in Fox's narrative one word of indorsement, by 
the King, of Cranmer's goodness or honesty. 

A Catholic writing a play based on Protestant histories might 
have followed the text, even against his own prejudices, but it is 
not to be believed that he would alter the text, and inject words of 
compliment of a man who held the relations to the Catholics of 
England that Cranmer did. 

We cannot help but believe that the man who did this was a 
Protestant, educated to believe that the Reformation was right 
and necessary, and that Cranmer was a good and holy man, the 
inspired instrument of Heaven in a great work. 

The family of Bacon was Protestant. They rose out of the 
ranks, on the wave of the Reformation. His father was an officer 
of Henry VIII.; his grandfather was tutor to the Protestant King 
Edward. During the reign of Mary, the Bacons lived in retire- 
ment; they conformed to the Catholic Church and heard mass 
daily; but, upon the coming in of Elizabeth, they emerged from 
their hiding-place, and Bacon's father and uncle, Burleigh, were at 
the head of the Protestant party of England during the rest of 
their lives. All the traditions of the family clustered around the 
Reformation. They faithfully believed that "God was truly 
known" in the religion of Elizabeth, and they were as violently 
opposed to the Papal supremacy as King John or the Bastard. 

It is a curious fact that Bacon alludes, in his prose works, to 
the reign of Elizabeth, in words very similar to those placed in the 
mouth of Cranmer. He says: 

This part of the island never had forty-five years of better times. . . . For if 
there be considered of the one side tlic truth of religion established, the constant 
peace and security, the good administration of justice, etc' 

III. The Writer of the Plays was Tolerant of Catholicity. 

But how does it come to pass that in the face of such evidence 
it has been claimed that the writer of the Plays was a Catholic ? 

Because, in an age of violent religious hatreds, when the Cath- 
olics were helpless, suspected and persecuted, the author of the 
Plays never uttered a word, however pleasing it might be to the 
court and the time-serving multitude, to fan the flame of animosity 

'^Advancement of Learnint;, book i. 



THE RELIGION OF THE PLA YS. 20i 

against the Catholics. On the other hand, whenever a Catholic 
priest is introduced on the scene, he is represented as honest, 
benevolent and venerable. 

"His friars," says one of his commentators, "are all wise, holy 
and in every respect estimable men. Instance Friar Lawrence, in 
Rovico a/nl Juliet, and the friar in Afuc/i Ado About Nothing^ 

When we turn to the writings of Bacon, we find the same 
broad spirit of religious liberality, as contradistinguished from the 
bigotry of the age. 

Bacon's mind was too great to be illiberal. Bigotry is a burst 
of strong light, through the crevice of a narrow mind, lighting only 
one face of its object and throwing all the rest into hideous and 
grotesque shadows. Bacon's mind, like the sun in the tropics, 
illuminated all sides of the object upon which it shone, with a 
comprehensive and vivifying light. 

Macaulay says of him: 

In what he wrote on church government, he showed, as far as he dared, a tol- 
erant and charitable spirit. . . . He was in power at the time of the Synod of 
Dort, and must for months have been deafened with talk about election, reproba- 
tion and final perseverance. Yet we do not remember a line in his works from 
which it can be inferred that he was either a Calvinist or an Armenian.' 

Speaking of Shakespeare, White says: 

Nowhere does he show leaning toward any form of church government, or 
toward any theological tenet or dogma. No church can claim him.- 

Bacon looked with pity upon the differences that distracted the 

religious world of his time. He says, speaking of a conspiracy 

against the crown, organized by Catholics: 

Thirdly, the great calamity it bringeth upon Papists themselves, of which the 
more moderate sort, as men misled, are to be pitied. 

Again he says: 

A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant 
men differ, and know well within himself that those which so differ mean one 
thing, and yet they themselves would never agree. And if it came to pass in that 
distance of judgment which is between man and man, shall we not think that 
God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their 
contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth of both. ' 

He turned with abhorrence from the burnings of men for con- 
science' sake. He said: 

' Essays, Bacon, p. 280. ^ Life and Genius 0/ S/iak., p. 188. ^ Essay O/ ihiity in Religion. 



202 J-A'AA'C/S BACON THE AUTHOR: OF THE TLA VS. 

We may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, or like unto 
it, that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force con- 
sciences; . . . much less to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword 
into the people's hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all government.' 

And we find the same sentiment in Shakespeare: 

It is an heretic that makes the fire, 
Not she which burns in it." 

IV. The Writer of the Plays Disliked the Puritans. 

In both writers we find a profound dislike of the Puritans. 
''Shakespeare," says one of his commentators, " never omits an 
opportunity of ridiculing the Puritan sect." 
He says: 

There is but one Puritan among them, and he sings songs to hornpipi •* 

Sir Andrew Aguecheek says: 

I would as lief be a Brownist as a politician. ■* 

And again; 

Though honesty be no Puritan, yet it will do no hurt.-' 

The mocking Falstaff tells the Chief Justice that he lost his 
voice " singing of anthems." 
Says one commentator: 

In the introduction of Sir Oliver Mar-text our poet indulges in a sly hit against 
the Puritan and itinerant ministers, whom he appears to have regarded with 
aversion. 

The play of Measure for Measure is an attempt to burlesque the 
virtue-loving principles of the Puritans; and in the cross-gartered 
Malvolio of Twelfth Night we have the 

Sharp, cross-gartered man, 
Whom their loud laugh may nickname Puritan. 

And the immortal question, 

Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes 
and ale? 

is universally accepted as a sneer at the asceticism of that grave 
sect. 

Wherever Shakespeare introduces a Dissenting preacher he 
makes him an ignoramus or a mountebank. 

> Essay Of Unity in Religion. ' Ibid., iv, i. ^ Alts Well tliat Ends Well, i, 3- 

« Winter's Tale, ii, 3. ■• T-wcl/th Night, iii, 2. 



THE RELIGION OF THE FLA VS. 203 

Similar views we find in Bacon. He says: 

For as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of 
religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people; 

/(V t/i(it be left unto the Aiial>aptists and other furies} 

In another place he says: 

Besides the Roman Catholics, there is a generation of sectaries, the Anabap- 
tists, Brownists and others of their kinds; they have been several times very busy 
in this kingdom under the color of zeal for reformation of religion; the King your 
master knows their disposition very well; a small touch will put him in mind of 
them; he had experience of them in Scotland. I hope he will beware of them in 
England; a little countenance or connivancy sets them on fire.''* 

And, like Shakespeare, he ridicules the manners of the Puritans. 
He says: 

There is a master of scoffing that in his catalogue of books of a feigned library sets 
down this title of a book, The ATorris-Dance of the Heretics; for, indeed, every sect 
of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move 
derision in worldlings and depraved politics, who are apt to contemn holy things.'' 

Bacon looked with the profoundest apprehension upon the 
growing numbers and power of that grave, sour, serious sect, 
with its strong anti-royal tendencies and its anti-social feelings. 
"They love no plays, as you do, Anthony." They threatened, in 
his view, by their malignant intolerance, the very existence of 
civilization. He says: 

Nor am I discouraged from it because I see signs in the times of the decline 
and overthrow of that knowledge and erudition which is now in use. . . . But the 
civil wars which may be expected, I think (judging from certain fashions which 
have come in of late), to spread through many countries, together with the malig- 
nity of sects, . . . seem to portend for literature and the sciences a tempest not less 
fatal, and one against which the printing-office will be no effectual security."* 

He clearly foresaw the coming revolution which broke out, not 
long after his death, under the lead of Cromwell. He wrote the 
King, when he had been overthrown by the agitations in Parlia- 
ment, that — 

Those who strike at your Chancellor will yet strike at your crown. . . . I wish 
that, as I am the first, so I may be the last of sacrifices in your times. 

Wise as he was, he could not see beyond the tempest which he 
felt was coming, but he feared that the literature of England would 
perish in the storm; and he was of course unable to do justice to 

' Essay Of Unity in Rfligion. '■> Essay Of Ihiity in Religion. 

" Advice to George Villiers. < Preface to Interfirctation if Xafin,-. 



204 FRANCIS JJ.ICOX THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

the real merits of the sect to whom England owes so much of Par- 
liamentary liberty and moral greatness. 

His premonitions of the immediate effects of the religious revo- 
lution were well founded. Birch says: 

The Bacons and the Shakespeares, the philosophers and scoffers, as well as the 
Papists, were extinguished by the Puritans. The theater gave way to the pulpit, 
the actor and dramatist to the preacher. The philosophical and political school of 
infidelity had no chance against the fanaticism of Cromwell, at the head of the 
religious spirit of the age.' 

V. The Writer of the Plays a Free-Thinker. 

But there was a deeper reason for the indifference of the real 
author of the Plays to the passions and quarrels of Catholics and 
Protestants. It was this: he did not believe in the doctrines of the 
Christian religion. This fact has not escaped the notice of com 
mentators. 

Swinburne says: 

That Shakespeare was in the genuine sense — that is, in the best and highest 
and widest meaning of the term — a free-thinker, this otherwise practically and 
avowedly superfluous effusion of all inmost thought appears to me to supply full 
and sufficient evidence for the conviction of every candid and rational man." 

Dowden says: 

Thus all through the play he wanders between materialism and spiritualism, 
between belief in immortality and disbelief, between reliance upon Providence and 
a bowing under fate. In presence of the ghost, a sense of his own spiritual exist- 
ence and the immortal life of the soul grows strong within him. In presence of a 
spirit he is himself a spirit: 

I do not set my life at a pin's fee; 

And for my soul, what can it do to that, 

Being a thing immortal as itself? 

When left to his private thoughts, he wavers uncertainly to and fro; death is a 
sleep — a sleep, it may be, troubled with dreams. In the graveyard, in the presence 
of human dust, the base affinities of our bodily nature prove irresistibly attractive 
to the curiosity of Hamlet's imagination; and he cannot choose but pursue the his- 
tory of human dust through all its series of hideous metamorphoses.* 

West says: 

Though there is no reason to think that there was any paganism in Shake- 
speare's creed, yet we cannot help feeling that the spirit of his art is in many 
respects pagan. In his great tragedies he traces the workings of noble or lovely 
human characters on to the point — and no farther — where they disappear into the 
darkness of death, and ends with a look back, never on toward anything beyond.* 

'^ riiilosopliy ami Religion of Shak.y\i. <^. ^ E. B. West, Broivning as a Pieacher, Dark 

''A Study of Shak., p. 165. Blue Magazine, Oct. and Nov., 1871. 

^ Shah, ^find and Art, p. 118. 



THE RELIGIOX OF J'lIE PLA VS. 



-05 



He seems to have been a fatalist. Take these passages as- 
proof: 

But, O vain boast ' 
Who can control his fate?' 

Our wills and fates do so contrary run. 

That our devices still are overthrown; 

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own,* 

Whom destiny 
That hath to instrument this lower world 
And what is in it.^ 

All unavoided is the doom of destiny.^ 

"Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.'' 

But apart from this predestinariaii bent there does not seem to 
be in the Plays any theological preference or purpose. All the 
plays which preceded the Shakespearean era were of a religious 
character — they were miracle plays, or moralities, in which Judas 
and the devil and the several vices shone conspicuously. Some of 
these plays continued, side by side with the Shakespeare Plays, 
down to the end of the sixteenth century, and into the beginning of 
the seventeenth. In Lupton's "moral and pitiful comedy," AI/ for 
Moiuy, the catastrophe represents Judas "like a damned soul in 
black, painted with flames of fire and a fearful visard, followed by 
Dives, 'with such like apparel as Judas hath,' while Damnation 
(another of the dramatis pcrsontc) , pursuing them, drives them before 
him, and they pass away, * making a pitiful noise,' into perdition." 

The mouth of hell, painted to represent flames of fire, was a very 
common scene at the back of the stage. 

Birch says: 

What a transition to the Plays of Shakespeare, while these miracle and moral 
plays were fresh in the recollection of the people, and might still be seen. These 
supernatural, historical and allegorical personages superseded by a material and 
philosophical explanation of things I ^ 

VI. The Causes of Infidelity in that Age. 

The "malignity of sects" drove many men to infidelit)'. They 
saw in religion only monstrous and cruel forces, which lighted hor- 
rible fires in the midst of great cities, and filled the air with the 
stench of burning flesh and the shrieks of the dving victims. The}'' 

' Othello, V, 2. 3 Tciit/iesi, iv, 3. '^ Othello, iii, 3. 

■■> ffa/iilcty iii, J. ' Richard III., iv, 4 " Birch, Philosophy ami Religion o/Shak., p. 11^ 



2o6 FA'ANC/S BACON THE AUTHOR OT THE PLAYS. 

held religion to account for those excesses of fanaticism in a semi- 
barbarous age, and they doubted the existence of a God who could 
permit such horrors. They were ready to exclaim with Macduff, 
when told that ''the hell-kite," Macbeth, had killed all his family, 
"all his pretty ones," at one fell swoop: 

Did heaven look on, 
And would not take their part? 

They came to conceive of God as a cruel monster who relished 
the sufferings of his creatures. Shakespeare puts this thought into 
the mouth of Lear: 

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: 
They kill us for their sport.' 

Mankind could only endure this divine injustice: 

Arming myself with patience, 
To stay the providence of some high powers 
That govern us below.'- 

But, whatever conclusions men might reach on these questions, 
it was perilous to express them. The stake and the scaffold 
awaited the skeptical. If their thoughts were to reach the light 
it must be through the mouths of madmen, like Lear or Hamlet; 
and to fall, as Bacon said, like sceds^ that, by their growth in the 
minds of generations to come, would mitigate the wrath of sects 
and prepare the way for an age of toleration. 

Birch says: 

The spectacle of Brownists, among the Protestants, and of Papists, suffering 
capital punishment for opinion's sake, alternately presented to the eyes of the pub- 
lic, would create a party hostile to all religion; whilst an occasional atheist burnt 
would teach the irreligious to keep their opinions to themselves, or caution them in 
administering infidelity as " medicinable."'* 

However strongly we may be convinced of the great and funda- 
mental truths of religion, it must be conceded that freedom of con- 
science and governmental toleration are, largely the outgrowth of 
unbelief and indifference. 

In an age that realized, without doubt or question, that life was 
but a tortured hour between two eternities; a thread of time across 
a boundless abyss; that hell and heaven lay so close up to this 
breathing world that a step would, in an instant, carry us over the 
shadowy line into an ocean of flame or a paradise of endless de- 

' Lear iv, i. "^Julius Casar, v, t. 'Birch, r/iilosi'/'/iy and Religion of Slia/^., \>. 8. 



THE RELIGION OE THE FLA VS. 207 

lights, it followed, as a logical sequence, that it was an act of tlie 
greatest kindness and humanity to force the skeptical, by any tor- 
ture inflicted upon them during this temporary and wretched exist- 
ence, to avoid an eternal hell and obtain an eternal heaven. But 
so soon as dpubt began to enter the minds of men; so soon as they 
said to one another, "Perchance these things may not be exactly 
as we have been taught; perchance the other world may be but a 
dream of hope; perchance this existence is all there is of it," the 
fervor of fanaticism commenced to abate. Not absolutely positive 
in their own minds as to spiritual things, they were ready to make 
some allowance for the doubts of others. Thus unbelief tamed the 
fervor even of those who still believed, and modified, in time, public 
opinion and public law. 

But in Bacon's era every thoughtful soul that loved his fellow- 
man, and sought to advance his material welfare, would instinct- 
ively turn away from a system of belief which produced such holo- 
causts of martyrs, and covered the face of the earth with such cruel 
and bloody wars. ' 

I have no doubt that Bacon in his youth was a total disbeliever 
in Christianity. He himself said: 

A little philosophy iiiclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy 
bringeth men"s minds about to religion. 

There w^as found among his writings a curious essay, called 
The Characters of a Believing Christian, in Paradoxes and Seeming Con- 
tradictions. It is a wholesale burlesque of Christianity, so cunningly 
put together that it may be read as a commendation of Christians. 

I give a few extracts: 

1. A Christian is one that believes things his reason cannot comprehend; he 
hopes for things which neither he nor any man alive ever saw; he labors for that 
which he knoweth he shall never obtain; yet, in the issue, his belief appears not to 
be false; his hopes make him not ashamed; his labor is not in vain. 

2. He believes three to be one and one to be three; a father not to be elder 
than his son; a son to be equal with his father, and one proceeding from both to 
be equal with both; he believing three persons in one nature and two natures in 
one person. . . . 

II. . . . He knoweth if he please men he cannot be the servant of Christ, yet 
for Christ's sake he pleaseth all men in all things. He is a peace-maker, yet is a 
continual fighter, and an irreconcilable enemy. 

18. . . . He professeth he can do nothing, yet as truly professeth he can do 
all things; he knoweth that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, yet 
believeth he shall go to heaven, both body and soul. 



2o8 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

20. . . . He knovveth he shall not be saved by or for his good works, yet lie 
doth all the good works he can. 

21. ... He believes beforehand that God hath purposed what he shall be 
and that nothing can make him alter his purpose; yet prays and endeavors as if 
he would force God to save him forever. 

24. ... He is often tossed and shaken, yet is as Mount Zion; he is a serpent 
and a dove, a lamb and a lion, a reed and a cedar. He is sometimes so troubled 
that he thinks nothing to be true in religion, yet if he did think so he could not at 
all be troubled. 

We turn to Shakespeare and we find in Richard II. a similar 

unbelieving playing upon seeming contradictions in Christianity. 

It reads like a continuation of the foregoing put into blank verse. 

Richard is in prison. He says: 

I have been studying how to compare 

This prison, where I live, unto the world: 

And, for because the world is populous. 

And here is not a creature but myself 

I cannot do it: yet I'll hammer 't out. 

My braine, I'll prove the female to my soul, 

My soul, the Father: and these two beget 

A generation of still breeding thoughts; 

And these same thoughts people this little world, 

In humors, like the people of this world. 

For no thought is contented. The better sort, 

As thoughts of things divine, are intermixt 

With scruples, and do set the Faith itself 

Against the Faith: 

As thus — "Come, little ones;" and then again, 

"It is as hard to come as for a camel 

To thread the postern of a needle's eye." 

No one can doubt that these thoughts, showing the same irre- 
ligious belief, and the same subtle way of propounding it, came 
from the same mind. And observe the covert sarcasm of this, 
among many similar utterances of Bacon: 

For those bloody quarrels for religion were unknown to the ancients, the 
heathen gods not having so much as a touch of that jealousy which is an attribute 
of the true God.- 

Through all the Shakespeare Plays we find the poet, by the 
mouths of all sorts of people, representing death as the end of all- 
things. Macbeth says: 

Duncan is in his grave; 
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; 
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison. 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 
Can touch him further. 

' Richard II., v, 5. '^ U'isi/oin o/tlie .Ancients — Diomcdes. 



THE RELIGION OF THE PLA YS. 209 

Titus Andronicus thus speaks of the grave: 

Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells; 
Here grow no damned grudges, here no storms; 
No noise, but silence iDid eternal sleep. 

In the sonnets, Shakespeare speaks of 

Death's dateless night. 

We are also told in the sonnets that we leave "this vile world" 
"with vilest worms to dwell." In The Tempest we are reminded 
that "our little life is rounded by a sleep"; that is to say, we are 
surrounded on all sides by total oblivion and nothingness. lachimo 
sees in sleep only "the ape of death." 

The Duke says, in Afeasiire for Measure: 

Thy best of rest is sleep, 
And that thou oft provok'st, yet grossly fear'st 
T/iv death, ivhie/i is no more. 

Dr. Johnson says: 

I cannot, without indignation, find Shakespeare saying that death is only 
sleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence which in the friar is impious, in 
the reasoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar. 

In the same play the writer mocks at the idea of an immortal 

soul: 

But man, proud man I 

Drest in a little brief authority. 

Most ignorant of -what he's most asst/red, 

His glassy essence, like an angry ape. 

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven. 

As make the angels weep.' 

In this same play of Measure for Measure, while he gives us the 
pagan conception of the future of the soul, he directly slaps in the 
face the Christian belief in hell. Speaking of death, he says: 

The delighted spirit 
To bathe in fiery fioods, or to reside 
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; 
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 
And blown with restless violence round above 
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst 
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts 
Imagine howling! ^ 

This is not the language of one who believed that God had said: 
"Depart from me, ye accursed, into everlasting fire ! " 

' Measure /o?- pleasure, ii, 2. ^ Ibid., iii, i. 



2IO J^RANCIS BACON THE AUriJOR OF 7J/J: /'/.A]s. 

And, we find the mocking Falstaff talking, in a jesting fashion, 
about the "primrose way to the everlasting bonfire!" 

No wonder Birch says, speaking of Measure for Measure : 

There are passages of infidelity in this play that staggered Warburton, made 
Johnson indignant, and confounded Coleridge and Knight.' 

VII. Conclusions. 

Thus, then, I decipher the religion of the Plays: 

1. They were written by a man of Protestant training, who 
believed in the political changes brought about by Cranmer and 
the Reformation. Such a man was Bacon. 

2. They were written by one who was opposed to the temporal 
power of the Pope in England. As I have shown, this was Bacon's 
feeling. 

3. They were written by one who, while a Protestant in poli- 
tics, did not feel bitterly toward the Catholics, and had no desire 
to mock or persecute them. We have seen that Bacon advocated 
the most liberal treatment of the followers of the old faith; he was 
opposed to the marriage of the clergy; he labored for the unity of 
all Christians. 

4. They were written by one whom the world in that age would 
have called "an infidel." Such a man, we have reason to believe, 
was Bacon. 

I shall not say that as he advanced in life his views did not 

change, and that depth of philosophy did not, to use his own 

phrase, "bring his mind about to religion," even to the belief 

in the great tenets of Christianity. Certain it is that no man ever 

possessed a profounder realization of the existence of God in the 

universe. How sublime, how unanswerable is his expression: 

I would rather believe all the fables in the Talmud and the Koran than that 
this universal frame is without a mind ! 

Being himself a mighty spirit, he saw through " the muddy 
vesture of decay" which darkly hems in ruder minds, and beheld 
the shadowy outlines of that tremendous Spirit of which he was 
himself, with all created things, but an expression. 

He believed that God not only was, but was all-powerful, and 
all- merciful; and that he had it in his everlasting purposes to 

Philosophy and Religion of Shak., p. 353. 



THE RELIGION OF THE PLA YS. 



211 



lift up man to a state of perfection and happiness on earth; and (as 
I have shown) he believed that he had created him — even him, 
Francis Bacon — as an instrument to that end; and to accomplish 
that end he toiled and labored almost from the cradle to the grave. 

He was — in the great sense of the words — a priest and 
prophet of God, filled with the divine impulses of good. If he 
erred in his conceptions of truth, who shall stand between the 
Maker and his great child, and take either to account ? 

We breathe an air rendered sweeter by his genius; we live in a 
world made brighter by his philosophy; his contributions to the 
mental as well as to the material happiness of mankind have been 
simply incalculable. Let us, then, thank God that he sent him to 
us on this earth; let us draw tenderly the mantle of charity over his 
weaknesses, if any such are disclosed by the unpitying hand of his- 
tory; let us exult that one has been born among the children of 
men who has removed, on every side for a thousand miles, the 
posts that experience had set up as the limitations of human 
capacity. 



CHAPTER VI. 
THE PURPOSES OE THE PLA YS. 

1 have, though in a despised weed, jjrocured Ihe good of all men. 

Bacon. 

THE first question asked by every thoughtful mind, touching 
the things of sense, is: Who made this marvelous worLd ? 
The second is: Why did He make it ? 

The purpose of the thing must always be greater than the thing 
itself: it encloses, permeates and maintains it. The result is but 
a small part of the preexistent intention. All things must stand or 
fall by their purposes, and every great work must necessarily be 
the outgrowth of a great purpose. 

Were these wonderful, these oceanic Shakespeare Plays the 
unconscious outpourings of an untutored genius, uttered with no 
more method than the song of a bird; or were they the production 
of a wise, thoughtful and profound man, who wrote them with 
certain well-defined objects in view ? 

I. Bacon's Aims and Objects. 

We are first to ask ourselves. If Francis Bacon wrote the Plays,. ■ 
what were the purposes of his life? For, as the Plays constitute a 
great part of his life-work, the purposes of his life must envelop 
and pervade them. 

No man ever lived upon earth who possessed nobler aims than 
Francis Bacon. He stands at the portal of the opening civilization 
of modern times, a sublime figure — his heart full of love for man,, 
his busy brain teeming with devices for the benefit of man; with 
uplifted hands praying God to bless his work, the most far-extend- 
ing human work ever set afoot on the planet. 

He says: 

I am a servant of posterity; for these things require some ages for the ripen- 
ing of them.' 

' Letter to Father Fulgenlio, the Venetian. 

o J 2 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 2i? 

Again he says, speaking of himself: 

Alwaj's desiring, with extreme fervency (such as we are confident God puts into 
the minds of men), to have that which was never yet attempted, now to be not 
attempted in vain, to-wit: to release men out of their necessities and miseries.' 

Again he says: 

This work [the Novum Organum] is for the bef^ering of men's bread and wine, 
which are the characters of temporal blessings and sacraments of eternal.'^ 

Macaulay says: 

The end which Bacon purposed to himself was the multiplying of human 
enjoyments and the mitigating of human sufferings. . . . This was the object of 
his speculations in every department of science — in natural philosophy, in legisla- 
tion, in politics, in morals.-' 

And, knowing the greatness of God and the littleness of man, 

he prays the source of all goodness for aid: 

God, the maker, preserver and renewer of the universe, guide and protect this 
work, both in its ascent to his own glory, and in its descent to the good of man, 
through his good will toward man, by his only begotten son, God with us.-* 

And, speaking of his own philosophy, he says: 

1 am thus persuaded because of its infiiiilc- usefulness ; for which reason it may 
be ascribed to divine encouragement.'' 

He speaks of himself as "a servant of God." He seems to have 
had some thought of founding, not a new religion, but a new sys- 
tem of philosophy, which should do for the improvement of man's 
condition in this world what religion strove to do for the improve- 
ment of his condition in the next world. 

And Birch says of Shakespeare: 

He had a system, which may be drawn froni his works, which he contrasts 
with the notions of mankind taken from Revelation, and which he represents as 
doing what revelation and a future state purpose to do for the benefit of mankind, 
and which he thinks sufficient to supply its place.'' 

In his prayer, written at the time of his downfall. Bacon says: 

Remember, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before thee, remember what 
1 have first sought, and what hath been principal in mine intentions. . . . The 
state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine eyes: I have 
hated all cruelty and hardness of heart; I have, though in a despised weed, procured 
the good of all men.'' 

How did he '* at first'' (that is to say in his youth) seek and pro- 
cure the good of all men? And what was the "-despised weed" ? 

' Expir. History. < Expcr. History. 

2 Letter to King James, October 19, 1620. •'' Letter to Father Fulgentio. 
^Essays. Bacon ^ p. 370. ^Philosophy and Religion 0/ Shak., p. 10. 

' Li/i and Works. Spedding', etc., vol. vii, p. 229. 



214 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

II. Did he Regard the Drama as a Possible Insirumental- 

iTY for Good? 

Do we find any indications that Bacon, with this intent in 
his heart to benefit mankind, regarded the stage as a possible 
instrumentality to that end ? That it was capable of being so 
used — in fact -icas so used — there can be no doubt. Simpson 
says: 

During its palmy days the English stage was the most important instrument 
for making opinions heard, its literature the most popular literature of the age, and 
on that account it was used by the greatest writers for making their comments on 
public doings and public persons. As an American critic says, "it was news- 
paper, magazine, novel — all in one."' 

A recent English writer, W. F. C. Wigston, says: 

Sir Philip Sidney, in his Defense of Foesy, maintains that the old philosophers 
disguised or embodied their entire cosmogonies in their poetry, as, for example, 
Thales, Empedocles, Parmenides, Pythagoras, and Phocyclides, ivho were poets and 
philosophers at once} 

But did Bacon entertain any such views ? Unquestionably. He 
says: 

Dramatic Poesy is as History made visible ; for it represents actions as if they 
were present, whereas History represents them as past. Parabolical Poesy is 
typical History, by which ideas that are objects of the intellect arc represented in 
forms that are objects of the sense. . . . 

Dramatic Poesy, which has the theater for its world, 'cvottld be of excelletit use 
if well directed. For the stage is capable of no small influence, both of discipline 
and of corruption. Now, of corruptions in this kind we have enough; but the dis- 
cipline has, in our times, been plainly neglected. And though in modern states 
play-acting is esteemed but as a toy, except when it is too satirical and biting; yet 
among the ancients it was used as a means of educating men's minds to virtue. 
Nay, it has been regarded by learned men and great philosophers as a kind of 
musician s bow bv ivhich men's minds may be played upon. And certainly it is 
true, and one of the great secrets of nature, that the minds of men are more 
open to impressions and aiifections when many are gathered together than when 
they are alone. "* 

The reader will note some suggestive phrases in the above: 

"dramatic poesy, which has the theater for its world." We are 

reminded of Shakespeare's " All the world's a stage." "A kind of 

musician's bow, by which men's minds may be played upon."" 

This recalls to us Hamlet's : 

Why, do you think that I am easier to be played on than a pipe f Call me what 
instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot //^y upon me.* 

* School of Shale, vol. i, p. xviii. ^ De Augmeniis, book ii, chap. 13. 

' A Neiv Study 0/ Skak., p. 42. * Hatnlet, iii, 2. 



THE PURPOSES OF THE FLA VS. 



215 



III. Was he Associated with Plays and Players? 

But it may be said: These are the utterances of a philosopher 
who contemplates these things with an aloofness, and Bacon may 
have taken no interest in play-houses or plays. 

Let us see. 

His loving and religious mother, writing of her sons, Anthony 
and Francis, in 1594, says: 

I trust they will not mum, nor mask, nor sinfully revel.' 

In 1594 his brother Anthony had removed from Gray's Inn to a 

ft 

house in Bishopsgate Street, "much to his mother's distress," says 
Spedding, "who feared the neighborhood of the Bull Inn, where 
plays and interludes were acted."' 

Bacon took part in the preparation of many plays and masks, 
for the entertainment of the court, some of which were acted by 
Shakspere s company of players. 

The Queen seemed to have some suspicion of Bacon being a 
poet or writer of plays. The Earl of Essex writes him, May 18, 
1594 — the Earl then urging Bacon for some law office in the gift of 
the crown: 

And she did acknowledge you had a great wit, and an excellent gift of speech, 
and much other good learning. Rut in law she rather thought you could make 
show to the uttermost of your knowledge, than that you were deep.^ 

And Bacon himself acknowledges that his mind is diverted 
from his legal studies to some contemplations of a different sort, 
and more agreeable to his nature. He says, in a letter to Essex: 

Your Lordship shall in this beg my life of the Queen; for I see well the bar will 
be my bier. 

And he writes to his uncle, Lord Burleigh, in 1594: 

To speak plainly, though perhaps vainly, I do not think that the ordinary 
practice of the law will be admitted for a good account of the poor talent that God 
hath given me.* 

Montagu says: 

Forced by the narrowness of his fortune into business, conscious of his own 
powers, aware of the peculiar quality of his mind, and disliking his pursuits, hi? 
heart was often in his study, while he lent his person to the robes of office.' 

' Spedding's Lift and Letters, vol. i, p. 326. < Letter to Burleigh, 1594. 

"^ Life and Works, vol. i, p. 314. "Montagu, Life and Works, vol. i, p. 117. 

^ Life and Works, Spedding, vol. i, p. 297. 



2i6 FJiANClS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

If, then, it is conceded that Bacon had great purposes for the 
benefit of mankind, purposes to be achieved by him, not by the 
sword or by the powers which flow from high positions, but by 
the pen, by working on "the minds of men;" and if it is con- 
ceded, as it must be, that he recognized the stage as an instru- 
mentality that could be made of great force for that end, by 
which the minds of men could "be played upon;" and if it is con- 
ceded that he was the author of masks and the getter-up of 
other dramatic representations; and that his mind was not de- 
voted to the dry details of his profession; and if it is conceded, 
as I think it must be, that he had the genius, the imagination, 
the wit and the industry to have prepared the Shakespeare Plays, 
what is there to negative the conclusion that he did so prepare 
them ? 

And does he not seem to be pointing at the stage, in these 
words, when, speaking of the obstructions to the reception of truth 
caused by the ignorance and bigotry of the age, he says, in The 
Masculine Birth of Time: 

"And what," you will say, "is this legitimate method? Have done with 
artifice and circumlocution; show me the naked truth of your design, that I may 
be able to form a judgment for myself." I would, my dearest son, that matters 
were in such a state with you as to render this possible. Do you suppose that, 
when all the entrances and passages to the mind of all men are infested and 
obstructed with the darkest idols, and these seated and burned in, as it were, into 
their substance, that clear and smooth places can be found for receiving the true 
and natural rays of objects? A neu' process must be instituted by which to insinu- 
ate ourselves into winds so entirely obstructed. For, as the delusions of the insane 
are removed by art and ingenuity, but aggravated by opposition, so must we adapt 
ourselves to the universal insa)iity. 

And again he says: 

So men generally taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood, 
civil history, morality, policy about which men's affections, praises, fortunes do 
turn and are conversant.' 

He not only discusses in his philosophical works dramatic litera- 
ture and the influence of the stage, but he urges iit the translation of 
the second book of the Advaficement of Learning (but not in the 
English copy), "that the art of acting {actio theatralis) should be 
made a part of the education of youth."" "The Jesuits," he says, 
"do not despise it; " and he thinks they are fight, for, "though it 

' Advancement of Learning, book li. - U'oiA-s of Baeon, vol. vi, p. 307. 



THE PURPOSES OF T/IE PLAYS. 217 

be of ill repute as a profession, yet as a part of discipline it is of 
excellent use." 

Spedding adds: 

In Bacon's lime, when masks acted by young gentlemen of the universities 
or inns of court were the favorite entertainment of princes, these things were 
probably better attended to than they are now. 

And Bacon seemed to feel that there ought to be some great 
writings to show the affections and passions t)f mankind. He says: 

And here again I find it strange that Aristotle should have written divers 
volumes of ethics and never handled the affections, which is the principal subject 
thereof. . . . But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors of this 
knowledge: where we may find painted forth, with great life, how affections are 
kindled and incited, and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained 
from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how 
they vary; how they gather and fortify; how they are in wrapped, one within 
another, and how they do fight and encounter one with another, and other like 
particulars.' 

And Barry Cornwall saN's, as if in echo of these sentiments: 

If Bacon educated the reason, .Shakespeare educated the heart. 

The one work was the complement of the other, and both came 
out of the same great mind. They were fiowers growing from the 
stalk of the same tremendous purpose. 

IV. His Poverty. 

But the reader may be fencing the truth out of his mind with 
the thought that Bacon was a rich man's son, and had not the in- 
centive to literary labor. Richard Grant White puts this argument 
in the following form. Speaking of the humble, not to say vile, 
circumstances which surrounded Shakspere in his youth, he says: 

If Shakespeare had been born at Charlecote, he would probably have had a 
seat in Parliament, not improbably a peerage; but we should have had no plays, 
only a few formal poems and sonnets, most likely, and possibly some essays, with 
all of Bacon's wisdom, set forth in a style more splendid than Bacon's, but hardly 
so incisive. 

It is curious how the critical mind can hardly think of Shake- 
speare without being reminded of Bacon. 

But was Bacon above the reach of poverty? Was he above the 
necessity of striving to eke out his income with his pen ? No. 
Hepworth Dixon says: 

' Advance 111 flit it/ Learning, book ii. 



2i8 JA'ANCIS BACO.y TIIK .HTJIOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Lady Anne and her sons are poor. Anthony, the loving and beloved, with 
whom Francis had been bred at Cambridge and in France, has nowr come home. 
. . . The two young fellows have little money and expensive ways. . . . Lady 
Anne starves herself at Gorhambury that she may send to Gray's Inn ale from the 
cellar, pigeons from her dove-cote, fowls from her farm-yard — gifts which she sea- 
sons with a good deal of motherly love, and not a little of her best motherly 
advice.' 

In 1612 Bacon writes King James: 

My good old mistress [Queen Elizabeth] was wont to call me her watch-candle, 
because it pleased her to say I did continually burn (and yet she suffered me to 
7vaste almost to nothing), so I much more owe like duty to your Majesty.^ 

In a letter to Villiers, Bacon says: 

Countenance, encourage and advance able men. For in the time of the Cecils, 
the father and son, able men ivcre by design and of purpose suppirssed. 

The same story runs through all the years during which the 
Shakespeare Plays were written. Spedding says: 

Michaelmas term [1593] passed, and still no solicitor appointed. Meanwhile, 
the burden of debt and the difficulty of obtaining necessary supplies was daily 
increasing. Anthony's correspondence during this autumn is full of urgent appli- 
cations to various friends for loans of money, and the following memorandum 
shows that much of his own necessity arose from his anxiety to supply the necessi- 
ties of his brother.' 

Here Mr. Spedding inserts the memorandum, showing ^5 
loaned Francis September 12, 1593; ;£i loaned him October 23, 
^593! £s loaned him November 19, 1593, with other loans of ^10, 
^20 and ^100. 

Falstaff expressed Bacon's own experience when he said: 

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only 
lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable* 

In the year 1594 Bacon describes himself, in a letter, as '^poor 
a/id sick\ workinf:; for bready 

In 1597 it is the same story. Spedding says: 

Bacon's fortunes are still as they were, only with this difference; that as the 
calls on his income are increasing, in the shape of interest for borrowed money, the 
income itself is diminishing through the sale of lands and leases.' 

His grief and perplexity are so great that he cries out in a letter 

to his uncle, the Lord Treasurer, written in that year: 

I stand indifferent whether God call me or her Majesty. 

' Personal History 0/ Lord Bacon, p. 32. * 2d Henry // '., i, 2. 

' Letter to King James, May 31, 1612. 'Spedding, Life and Works, vol. ii, p. 53. 

^Spedding, Life and Works, vol. i, p. 321. 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. ■ 219 

In 159S he is arrested for debt by Sympson, the goldsmith; in 
1603 he is again in trouble and petitions the Secretary, Cecil, to 
intercede and prevent his creditors taking more than the principal 
of his bond, for, he adds, "a Jew can take no more." 

He was constantly annoyed and pestered by his creditors. He 
writes Mr. Michael Hicks, January 21, 1600, that he proposes to 
clear himself from "the discontent, speech or danger of others" of 
his creditors. "Some of my debts, of wosf chniior and ii)iportuuit\\ 
I have paid." 

Again he says: "I do use to pay my debts iti time'' — not in 
money. 

July 3, 1603, he writes his cousin Robert, Lord Cecil: 

I shall not be able to pay the money within the time by your Lordship under 
taken, which was a fortnight. Nay, money I find so hard to come by at this time, 
as I thought to have become an humble suitor to your Honor to have sustained me, 
. . . with taking up three hundred pounds till I can put away some land. 

He hopes, by selling off "the skirts of my living in Hertford- 
shire," to have enough left to yield him three hundred pounds per 
annum income. 

V. The Profit of Play-writing. 

The price paid for a new play was from ^5 to ^20. This, 
reduced to dollars, is $25 to $100. But money, it is agreed, pos- 
sessed a purchasing power then equal to twelve tiines what it 
has now; so that Bacon, for writing a new play, would receive 
what would be the equivalent of from $300 to $1,200 to-day. But 
in addition to this the author was entitled to all the receipts taken 
in, above expenses, on the second or third day of the play,' and 
this, in the case of a successful play, might l)e a considerable sum. 
And probably in the case of plays as popular as were the Shake- 
speare Plays, special arrangements were made as to the division of 
the profits. It was doubtless from dividing with Bacon these sums 
that Shakspere acquired his large fortune. 

Such sums as these to a man who was borrowing one pound at 
a time from his necessitous brother, Anthony, and who was more 
than once arrested and put in sponging-houses for debt, were a 
matter of no small moment. 

' See Collier's Annals of the S/ag-e, vol. iii, pp. 224, 229, 230, etc. 



2 20 /''A'A.VC/S BACOX TJ/E AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

He seems, from a letter to Essex, to have had some secret means 
of making money. He says: 

For means I value that most; and the rather because J am purposed )!ot to fol- 
low the practice of the la7v ; . . . and my reason is only because it drinketh too 
much time, which I have dedicated to better pitrposes. But, even for that point of 
estate and means, I partly lean to Thales' opinion, " that a philosopher 7iiay he rich 
if he 7vill" 

This is very significant. Even Spedding perceives the traces of 
a mystery. He says: 

So enormous were the results which Bacon anticipated from such a renovation 
of philosophy as he had conceived the possibility of, that the reluctance which he 
felt to devote his life to th.e ordinary practice of a lawyer cannot be wondered at. 
It is easier to understand why he was resolved not to do that, than "udiat other plan 
he had to clear himself of the difficulties ichich loere accu>?iulati}ig upon him, and to 
obtain means of living and vjorking. . . . What course he betook himself to at the 
crisis at which he had now arrived, I cannot positively say. I do not find any 
letter of his which can be probably assigned to the winter of 1596; nor have I met 
among his brother's papers anything which indicates 7ahat he 7C'as about. . . . 
I presume, however, that he betook himself to his studies.' 

In the last years of the sixteenth century and the first of the 
seventeenth Bacon seems to have given up all hope of rising to 
office in the state. He was under some cloud. He says: 

My ambition is quenched. . . . My ambition now I shall only put upon my pen, 
whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit of the times succeeding. "■' 

He was hopeless; he was powerless; he was poor. He had felt 

The whips and scorns of time. 
The oppressor's wrong, the poor man's contumely, 

. . . the law's delay. 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes. 

He wrote to the Queen that he had suffered 
The contempt of the contemptible, that measure a man by his estate.^ 
What could he make money at? There was no great novel- 
reading public, as at present. There were no newspapers to 
employ ready and able pens. There was little sale for the weight- 
ier works of literature. There was but one avenue open to him — 
the play-house. 

Did he combine the more sordid and pressing necessity for 
money with those great, kindly, benevolent purposes toward man- 

^ Spedding', l!'o>-ks n/ Bacon — Letters and Li/e, vol. ii, p. 1. 

'■' Letter to R. Cecil, July 3, 1603. 

^Letter to the Queen, 1599-1600 — L/Je and Works, vol. ii, p. 166. 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 22 1 

kind which filled his heart ? Did he try to use the play-house as a 
school of virtue and ethics ? Let us see. 

VI. Gre.at Mor.al Lessons. 

In the first place, the Flays are great sermons against great 
evils. They are moral epics. 

What lesson does Maci'ct/i leave upon the mind ? It teaches 
every man who reads it, or sees it acted, the horrors of an unscru- 
pulous ambition. It depicts, in the first place, a brave soldier and 
patriot, defending his country at the risk of his life. Then it shows 
the agents of evil approaching and suggesting dark thoughts to 
his brain. Then it shows us, as Bacon says, speaking of the passions 
as delineated b}^ the poets and writers of histories: 

Painted forth, with great life, how affections (passions) are kindled and incited; 
and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further 
degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they 
gather and fortify; how they are in wrapped one within another; and how they do 
fight and encounter one with another. 

All this is revealed in Macbetli. We see the seed of ambition 

taking root; we see it ''disclosed;" we see self-love and the sense 

of right warring with each other. We see his fiendish wife driving- 

him forward to crime against the promptings of his better nature. 

It depicts, with unexampled dramatic power, a cruel and treacherous 

murder. Then it shows how crime begets the necessity for crime: 

To be thus is nothing, 
But to be safely thus. 

It shows one horror treading fast upon another's heels: the 
usurper troubled with the horrible dreams that "shake him 
nightly;" the mind of the ambitious woman giving way under the 
strain her terrible will had put upon it, until we see her seeking peace 
in suicide; while Macbeth falls at last, overthrown and slaughtered. 

Have all the pulpits of all the preachers given out a more ter- 
rible exposition and arraignment of ambition? Think of the 
uncountable millions who, in the past three hundred years, have 
witnessed this play ! Think of the illimitable numbers who will 
behold it during the next thousand years ! 

What an awfvil picture of the workings of a guilty conscience is 
that exhibited when Macbeth sees, even at the festal board, the 
blood-boltered Banquo rising up and regarding him with glaring 



2 22 I-KAXCIS BACOA' THE AUTHOR OF THE I' LA VS. 

and soulless eyes. And how like the pitiful cry of a lost soul is this 
utterance ? 

I have lived long enough: my way of life 

Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf: 

And that which should accompany old age, 

As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, 

I must not look to have; but, in their stead, 

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath 

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. 

Call the roll of all your pulpit orators ! Where is there one 
that has ever preached such a sermon as that ? Where is there one 
that has ever had such an audience — such an unending succession 
of million-large audiences — as this man, who, in a "despised 
weed, sought the good of all men"? 

And, remember, that it was not the virtuous alone, the church- 
goers, the elect, who came to hear this marvelous sermon, but the 
high, the low; the educated, the ignorant; the young, the old; the 
good, the vicious; the titled lord, the poor 'prentice; the high-born 
dame, the wretched waste and wreck of womankind. 

A sermon preached almost nightly for nigh three hundred, 
years ! Not preached with robe or gown, or any pretense of vir- 
tue, but in those living pictures, "that history made visible," of the 
mighty philanthropist. Not coming with the ostentation and 
parade of holiness, with swinging censer and rolling organ, but 
conveyed into the minds of the audience insensibly, • insinuated 
into them, through the instrumentality of a lot of poor players. 
Precisely as we have seen Bacon suggesting that, by " a new process," 
truth should be insinuated into minds obstructed and infested — a 
process '''• drenched in flesJi and blood" as surely Macbeth is; a process 
that the ancients used to "educate men's minds to virtue; " by which 
the minds of men might be "played upon," as if with a "musician's 
bow," with the greater force because (as he had observed a thou- 
sand times in the Curtain Theater) the minds of men are more acted 
upon when they are gathered in numbers than when alone. 

VII. Ingratitude. 

Turn to Lear. What is its text? Ingratitude. Another mighty 
sermon. 

The grand old man who gave all, with his heart in it. The 
viciousness of two women; the nobleness of a third — for the gentle 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 22-' 

heart of the poet would not allow him to paint mankind altogether 
bad; he saw always "the soul of goodness in things evil." And 
mark the moral of the story. The overthrow of the wicked, who 
yet drag down the good and noble in their downfall. 

VIII. Jealousy .anij Inte.mperanck. 

Turn to Othello. What is the text here? The evils of jealousy 
and the power for wrong of one altogether iniquitous. The 
overthrow of a noble nature by falsehood; the destruction of 
a pure and gentle woman to satisfy the motiveless hate of a 
villain. And there is within this -another moral. The play is 
a grand plea for temperance, expressed with jewels of thought 
set in arabesques of speech. Can all the reformers match that 
expression : 

O thou invisible spirit of wine ! If thou hast no q^ame to be known by, let us 
call thee devil ! 

The plot of the play turns largely on Cassio's drunkenness; for 
it is Desdemona's intercession for poor Cassio that arouses Othel- 
lo's suspicions. And how pitiful are Cassio's exclamations: 

Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains ! 
that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel and applause, transform ourselves into 
Inmsts. . . . To be now a sensible man, by and by a focjl, and presently a beast ! 
O strange '. Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil. 

It is impossible to sum up a stronger appeal in behalf of a tem- 
perate use of the good things of this world than these words con- 
tain. And, remember, they were written, not in the nineteenth 
century, but in an age of universal drunkenness, practiced by both 
men and women; and uttered at first to audiences nine-tenths of 
whom probably had more ale and sack in them than was good for 
them, even while they witnessed the play. 

And we find the great teacher always preaching the same lesson 
of temperance to the people, and in much the same phrases. He 
says : 

When he is best, he is little worse than a man; and when he is worst he is 
little better than a beast.' 

And again he says: 

A howling monster; a drunken monster.^ 

' Merry Wh'fs of Windsor ^ i, 2. ^ Tempest^ iii, 2. 



224 /■y^'.4XC/S BACOJV THE AUTHOR OF J HE PLAYS. 

And in the introduction to Tlic Taiiii/ig of tJir Shrew, his Lord- 
ship, looking at tlie drunken Christopher Sly, says: 

Oh, monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies. 

IX. TiMON OF Athens. 

In this play, the moral is the baseness of sycophants and mam- 
mon-worshipers. Its bitterness and wrath came from Bacon's 
own oppressed heart, in the day of his calamities; when he had felt 
all "the contempt of the contemptible, who measure a man by his 
estate." 

Mr. Hallam says: 

There seems to have been a period of Shakespeare's life when his heart was ill 
at ease, and ill content with the world or his own conscience; the memory of hours 
mis-spent, the pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of man's 
worser nature, which intercourse with ill-chosen associates by choice or circum- 
stance peculiarly teaches;— r these, as they sank down into the depths of his great 
mind, seem not only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear and Tiinon, 
but that of one primary character, the censurer of mankind. • 

X. Shylock the Usurer. 

In 1594 Bacon was the victim of a Jew money-lender. In 1595 

appeared The Merchant of Venice, in which, says Mrs. Pott: 

Shylock immortalizes the hard Jew who persecuted Bacon; and Antonius the 
generous brother Anthony who sacrificed himself and taxed his credit in order to 
relieve Francis. Antonio in Twelfth Alight is of the same generous character. 

And it will be observed that both Bacon and the writer of the 
Plays were opposed to usury. ' 

Says Bacon: 

It is against nature for money to hrcd money.'' 

And again he speaks of 

The devouring trade of usury.** 

While in Shakespeare we have the conversation between 

Shylock and Antonio, the former justifying the taking of interest 

on money by the case of Jacob, who "grazed his uncle Laban's 

sheep" and took "all the yearlings which were streaked and pied." 

Says Antonio: 

Was this inserted to make interest good? 
Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams? 

Shylock. I cannot tell. I make it breed as fast. 
' Literature q/ Euro/>e, vol. iii, p. 508. ^ Essay O/ Usury. ' Essay Of Seditions. 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 



!25 



And again we have the same idea of money breeding money, 

used by Bacon, repeated in this conversation. Antonio says: 

I am as like to call thee so again. 

To spit on thee again, to spurn thee, too. 

If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not 

As to thy friends; for when did friendship take 

A breed of barren metal from his friend ? 

And it will be remembered that the whole play turns on the sub- 
ject of usury. The provocation which Antonio first gave Shylock 

was that 

He lends out money gratis, and brings down 
The rate of usance here with us in Venice. 

And again: 

Signior Antonio, many a time and oft 
In the Rialto you have rated me 
About my monies and my usances. 

The purpose of the play was to stigmatize the selfishness mani- 
fested in the taking of excessive interest; which is, indeed, to the 
poor debtor, many a time tlie cutting-out of the very heart. And 
hence the mighty genius has, in the name of Shylock, created a 
synonym for usurer, and has made in the Jew money-lender the 
most terrible picture of greed, inhumanity and wickedness in all 
literature. 

Bacon saw the necessity for borrowing and lending, and hence of 
moderate compensation for the use of money. But he pointed out, 
in his essay Of Usury, the great evils which resulted from the prac- 
tice. He contended that if the owners of money could not lend it 
out, they would have to employ it themselves in business; and hence, 
instead of the "lazy trade of usury," there would be enterprises of 
all kinds, and employment for labor, and increased revenues to the 
kingdom. And his profound wisdom was shown in this utterance: 

It [usury] bringeth the treasures of a realm or state into a few hands; for the 
usurer being at certainties, and others at uncertainties, at the end of the game 
most of the money will be in his box; and ever a state flourisheth most when 
wealth is more equally spread. 

XI. MOBOCRACY. 

The moral of Coriolanus is that the untutored multitude, as it 
existed in Bacon's day, the mere mob, was not capable of self-gov- 
ernment. The play was written, probably, because of the many 
indications which Bacon sav/ that "the foot of the peasant was 



2 26 FRANCIS BACOX THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

treading close on the kibe of the courtier," as Hamlet says; and 
that a religious war, accompanied by an uprising of the lower 
classes, was at hand, which would, as he feared, sweep away all 
learning and civility in a deluge of blood. The deluge came 
shortly after his death, but the greatness and self-control of the 
English race saved it from ultimate anarchy. At the same time 
Bacon, in his delineation of the patriot Brutus, showed that he was 
not adverse to a republican government of intelligent citizens. 

XII, The Deficiencies of the Man of Thought. 

Hamlet is autobiographical. It is Bacon himself. It is the man 
of thought, the philosopher, the poet, placed in the midst of the 
necessities of a rude age. 

Bacon said: 

I am better fitted to hold a book than to play a part. 

He is overweighted with the thought-producing faculty: in his 
case the cerebrum overbalances the cerebellum. He laments in his 
old age that, being adapted to contemplation and study, his for- 
tune forced him into parts for which he was not fitted. He makes 
this his apology to posterity: 

This I speak to posterity, not out of ostentation, but because I judge it may 
somewhat import the dignity of learning, to have a man horn for letters rather than 
anything else, who should, by a certain fatality, and against the bent of his own 
genius, Iw compelled into active life} 

This is Hamlet. He comes in with book in hand, speculating 
where he should act. He is " holding a book " where he should 
'* play a part." 

Schlegel says of Hatiilct : 

The whole is intended to show that a calculating consideration, which exhausts 
all the relations and possible consequences of a deed, must cripple the power of 
acting. 

Coleridge says of Hamh-t : 

We see a great, an enormous intellectual activity, and a proportionate aver- 
sion to real action consequent upon it. 

Dowden says: 

When the play opens he has reached the age of thirty years — the age, it has 
been said, when the ideality of youth ought to become one with and inform the 
practical tendencies of manhood — and he has received culture of every kind 

' Advanceiitent of Learnings book viii, p. 3. 



■jut: PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 227 

except the culture of active life. He has slipped on into years of fill! manhood still a 
haunter of the university, a student of philosophies, an amateur in art, a ponderer on 
the things of life and death, who has never formed a resolution or executed a deed. 

These descriptions fit Bacon's case precisely. His ambition 
drags him into the midst of the activities of the court; his natural 
predisposition carries him away to St. Albans or Twickenham 
Park, to indulge in his secret "contemplations;" and to compose 
the "works of his recreation" and "the works of the alphabet." 
He was, as it were, tw'o men bound in one. He aspired to rule 
England and to give a new philosophy to mankind. He would 
rival Cecil and Aristotle at the same time. 

And this play seems to be autobiographical in another sense. 

Hamlet was robbed of his rights by a relative — his uncle. He 

•* lacked advancement." Bacon, who might naturally hope to rise to 

a place in Elizabeth's court similar to that held by his father, "lacks 

advancement;" and it is his uncle Burleigh and his uncle's son who 

hold him down. Hamlet is a philosopher. So is Bacon. Hamlet 

writes verses to Ophelia. Bacon is a poet. Hamlet writes a play, 

•or part of one, for the stage. So, we assert, did Bacon. Hamlet 

puts forth the play as the work of another. So, we think, did 

Bacon. Hamlet cries out: 

The play's the thing 
Wherewith I'll catch the conscience of the King. 

And it is our theory that Bacon sought with his plaj'S to 
catch the conscience of mankind. Hamlet has one true, trusted 
friend, Horatio, to whom he opens the secrets of his heart, and to 
whom he utters a magnificent essay on friendship. Bacon has an- 
other such trusted friend, Sir Tobie Matthew, to whom he opened 
/lis heart, and for whom, we are told, he wrote his prose essay Of 
Friends/lip. Hamlet is supposed to be crazy. Bacon is charged 
by his enemies with being a little daft — with having "a bee in his 
head " — and each herein, perhaps, illustrates the old truth, that 

Great minds to madness are quite close allied, 
And thin partitions do the bounds divide. 

XHI. The Tempest. 

The great drama of T/ie Tempest conta.\ns another personal storj'. 

This has, in part, been perceived by others. Mr. Campbell says: 

The Tempest has a sort of sacredness as the last work of a mighty workman. 
Shakespeare, as if conscious that it would be his last, and as if inspired to typify 



2 28 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 

hi»isi'lj\ has made his hero a natural, a dignified and benevolent magician, who 
could conjure up spirits from the vasty deep, and command supernatural agency 
by the most seemingly natural and simple means. . . . Here Shakespeare himself 
is Prospero, or 7'ather the superior genius 7C'/io comviands hotli Frospero and Ariel. 
But the time was approaching when the potent sorcerer was to break his staff, and 
bury it fathoms in the ocean. 

Deeper than did ever plummet sound.' 

What is the plot of the play 1 

Prospero was born to greatness, was a "prince of power." 

Bacon was born in the royal palace of York Place, and expected 

to inherit the greatness of his father, Elizabeth's Lord Chancellor. 

"Bacon," says Hepworth Dixon,'' "seemed born to power." 

Prospero was cast down from his high place. So was Bacon. 

Who did it ? His uncle Burleigh. And in The Tempest^ as in 

Hamlet, an uncle is the evil genius of the. play. Prospero says to- 

his daughter Miranda: 

Thy false uncle — . . . 
Being once perfected how to grant suits. 
How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom 
To trash for over-topping — new created 
The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed them, 
Or else new formed them; having both the key 
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state 
To what tune pleased his ear. 

This might be taken to describe, very aptly, the kind of arts by 
which Bacon's uncle, Burleigh, reached and held power. Bacon 
wrote to King James: 

In the time of Elizabeth the Cecils purposely oppressed all men of ability. 

And why did Prospero lose power? Because he was a student. 
He neglected the arts of statecraft and politics, and devoted him- 
self to nobler pursuits. He says: 

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated 
To closeness and the bettering of my mind. 
.... me, poor man ! my library 
Was dukedom large enough ! 

"The bettering of my mind" is very Baconian. But where 
have we the slightest evidence that the man of Stratford ever 
strove to improve his mind ? 

And the labors of Prospero were devoted to the liberal arts and 
to secret studies. So were Bacon's. Prospero says: 

' Knight's Shakespeare^ introductory notice to Tempest. 
"^ Personal History of Lord Bacon ^ p. 7. 



THE PURPOSES OE THE PLAYS. 229 

And Prospero, the prime duke, being so reputed 

In dignity; and for the liberal arts 

Without a parallel; those being all my study, 

The government I cast upon my brother, 

And to my state grew stranger, being transported 

And rapt in sci-ret studies. 

What happened ? Prospero was dethroned, and with his little 
-daughter, Miranda, was seized upon: 

In few, they hurried us aboard a bark; 

Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared 

A rotten carcase of a butt, not rigged. 

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats 

Instinctively had quit it. 

This was the rotten butt of Bacon's fortunes, when they were 
at their lowest; when his friends deserted him, like the rats, and 
when he wrote Timon of Athens. 

Miranda asks: 

How came we ashore? 
Prospero replies: 

By Providence divine 
Some food we had, and some fresh water, that 
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, 
Out of his charity, (who being then appointed 
Master of this design), did give us, with 
Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries 
Which since have steaded much; so of his gentleness, 
Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me. 
From mine own library, with volumes that 
I prize above my dukedom. 

How fully is all this in accord with the character of Francis 
Bacon: — the man who had "taken all knowledge for his province; " 
the "concealed poet;" the philanthropist; the student; the lover 
of books ! How little is it in accordance with what we know of 
Shakspere, who does not seem to have possessed a library, or a 
single book — not even a quarto copy of one of the Plays. 

But who was Miranda ? 

The name signifies 7vonderful things. Does it mean these won- 
derful Plays? She was Bacon's child — the offspring of his brain. 
And we find, as I have shown, in sonnet Ixxvii these lines, evidently 
written in the front of a commonplace-book: 

Look what thy memory cannot contain, 
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find 
Those children nutscd, delivered from thy brain. 
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. 



230 FHANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Was Miranda the wonderful product of Bacon's brain — the 

child of the concealed poet? 

When Ferdinand sees Miranda, he plays upon the name: 

My prime request, 
Which I do last pronounce, is, O! yoti wonder ! 
If vou be maid or no? 

And it will be noted that Miranda was in existence before Pros- 
pero's downfall; and the Plays had begun to appear in Bacon's 
you'th and before his reverses. 

And we are further told that when Prospero and his daughter 
were carried to the island, the lf)ve he bore Miranda was the one 
thing that preserved him from destruction: 

Miranda. Alack! what trouble 

Was I then to you ? 

Prospero. O! a cherubin 

Thou wast that did preserve me ! Thou didst smile, 

Infused with a fortitude from heaven, 

When I have decked the sea with drops full salt, 

Under my burthen groaned; which raised in me 

An undergoing stomach, to bear up 

Against what should ensue. 

That is to say, in the days of Bacon's miseries, his love for divine 
poetry saved him from utter dejection and wretchedness. And in 
some large sense, therefore, his troubles were well for him; and for 
ourselves, for without them we should not have the Plays. And hence 
we read: 

Miranda. O, the Heavens ! 

What foul play had we, that we came from thence ? 

Or blessed was't we did ? 

Pj-ospero. Both, both, my girl; 

By foul play, as thou sayst, were we heaved thence; 

But blessedly holp hither. 

And the leisure of the retirement to which Bacon'was driven 
enabled him to perfect the Plays, whereas success would have ab- 
sorbed him in the trivialities of court life. And so Prospero says to 
Miranda: 

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. ' 
Here in this island we arrived; and here 
Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit 
Than other princes can, that have more time 
For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful. 

And on the island is Ariel. Who is Ariel ? It is a tricksy 
spirit, a singer of sweet songs, "which give delight and hurt not;" 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 2X\ 

a maker of delicious music; a secretive spirit, given much to hiding 
in invisibility while it achieves w^ondrous external results. It is 
Prospero's instrumentality in his magic; his servant. And withal it 
is humane, gentle and loving, like the soul of the benevolent philos- 
opher himself. If Vro-spcr-o is Shake-i^tv, or, as Campbell says, 
" the superior genius who commands both Prospero and Ariel," then 
Ariel is the genius of poetry, the constructive intellectual power of 
the drama-maker, which he found pegged in the knotty entrails of 
an oak, uttering the harsh, discordant sounds of the old moralities, 
until he released it and gave it wings and power. And, like the 
maker of the Plays, it sings sweet songs, of which Ferdinand says: 

This is no mortal business, nor no sound 
That the earth owns. 

And, like the poet, it creates masks to work upon tiie senses of 
its audience — it is a play-maker. 

And there is one other inhabitant of the island — Caliban — 
A freckled whelp, hag-born. 

Who is Caliban ? Is he the real Shakspere .'' He claims the 
ownership of the island. Was the island the stage, — the play- 
house, — to which Bacon had recourse for the means of life, when 
his fortune failed him; to which he came in the rotten butt of his 
fortunes, with his child Miranda, — the early plays ? 

Shakspere, be it remembered, was at the play-house before 

Bacon came to it. Prospero found Caliban on the island. Caliban 

claimed the ownership of it. He says, "This island's mine." 

When thou earnest first, 
Thou strok'dst me, and made much of me; 
Would give me water with berries in't; and teach me how 
To name the bigger light, and how the less. 
That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee, 
And showed thee all the qualities of the isle, 
The fresh springs, brine springs, barren place and fertile. 

That is to say, Shakspere gave Bacon the use of his knowledge 
of the stage and play-acting, and showed him the fertile places 
from which money could be extracted. 

And do these lines represent Bacon's opinion of Shakspere? 

Abhorred slave. 
Which any print of goodness will not take, 
Being capable of all ill ! I pitied thee. 
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour 



232 FA' A NCI S BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage, 
Know thine own meaning, but would gabble like 
A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes 
With loords that Diade ilicm knoivn. 

And again he says — and it will be remembered Shakspere was 

alive when The 777;//><,sY was written: 

A devil, a born devil, on whose nature 
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains. 
Humanly taken, all, all lost, quite lost; 
And as, with age, his body uglier grows. 
So his mind cankers. 

Prospero has lost his kingdom. He has had the leisure in the 
solitude of his "full poor cell'' to bring Miranda to the perfection 
of mature beauty. The Plays are finished. 

[Bacon, after his downfall, in 1623, applied for the place of Pro- 
vost of Eaton; he says, "it was a pretty cell ior my fortune."] 

When Miranda was grown to womanhood an accident threw 
Prospero's enemies in his power. A most propitious star shone 
upon his fortunes. His enemies were upon the sea near him. 
With the help of Ariel he raised a mighty tempest zxiA shipwrecked 
those who had deprived him of his kingdom, and brought them 
wretched and half-drowned to his feet. He had always wished to 
leave the island and recover his kingdom; and, his enemies being 
in his power, he forced them to restore him to his rights. 

Is there anything in Bacon's life which parallels this story? 
There is. 

Bacon, like Prospero, had been cast down. He desired to rise 
again in the -state. And there came a time when he brought his 
enemies to his feet, in the midst of a tempest of the state, which he 
probably helped to create. And this very word tempest, so applied, 
is a favorite one with Bacon. He said, at the time of his downfall: 

When I enter into myself, I find not the materials for such a tempest as is now 
come upon me. 

In June, 1606, Francis Bacon was out of place and without in- 
fluence with the court, but he wielded great power in Parliament, 
of which he was a member, as a noble orator and born ruler of men. 
He had hoped that this influence would have secured him prefer- 
ment in the state. He was disappointed. Hepworth Dixon shows 
that, upon the death of Sir Francis Gawdy and Coke's promotion 



THE PLRrOSES OF THE PLAYS. 233 

to the bench, Bacon expected to be made Attorney-General. But 
his malign cousin, Cecil, again defeated his just and reasonable 
hopes; and the great man, after all his years of patient waiting, 
had to step aside once more to make place for some small creature. 

But there is trouble in the land. King James of Scotland came 
down to rule England, and hordes of his countrymen came with, or 
followed after him, to improve their fortunes in the fat land of 
which their countryman was monarch. King James desired Parlia- 
ment to pass the bill of Union, to unite the Scots and English on 
terms of equality. His heart was set on this measure. But the 
English disliked the Scots. 

Hepworth Dixon says: 

Under such crosses the bill on Union fares but ill. Fuller, the bilious repre- 
sentative of London, flies at the Scots. The Scots in London are in the highest 
degree unpopular. Lax in morals and in taste, they will take the highest place at 
table, they will drink out of anybody's can, they will kiss the hostess, or her 
buxom maid, without saying "by your leave." ' 

We have reason to think that Ariel is at work, invisibly, behind 
the scenes raising the Tempest. Dixon continues: 

Brawls fret the taverns which tfiey haunt; pasqiiius Jiiss against tlietn from the 
stage. . . . Tlwee great poets, Joiison,Chapma)i and Marston, go to jail for a harmless 
jest against these Seots. Such acts of rigor make the name of Union hateful to the 
public ear. 

Let Hepworth Dixon tell the rest of the story: 

When Parliament meets in November to discuss the bill on Union, Bacon 
stands back. The King has chosen his attorney; let the new attorney fight the 
King's battle. The adversaries to be met are bold and many. . . . Beyond the 
Tweed, too, people are mutinous to the point of toar, for the countrymen of 
Andrew Melville begin to suspect the King of a design against the Kirk. . . . 
Melville is clapped into the Tower. . . . Hobart (the new Attorney-General) goes 
to the wall. James now sees that the battle is not to the weak, nor the race to the 
slow. Bacon has only to hold his tongue and make his terms. - 

Prospero has onl}' to wait for the Tempest to wash his enemies 
to his feet. 

Alarmed lest the bill of Union may be rejected by an overwhelming vote, 
Cecil suddenly adjourns the House. He must get strength. . . . Pressed on all 
sides, here by the Lord Chancellor, there by a mutinous House of Commons, 
Cecil at length yields to his cousin's claim; Sir John Doderidge bows his neck, and 
when Parliament meets, after the Christmas holidays, Bacon holds in his pocket 
a written engagement for the Solicitor's place. 

'^ Personal History 0/ Lord Bacon ^ p. 1S4. ''Ibid., p. 1S3. 



'> I 



4 



FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 



The Tempest is past; the Duke of Milan has recovered his 
kingdom; the poor scholar leaves his cell, at forty-six years of age, 
and steps into a place worth ^6,000 a year, or $30,000 of our 
money, equal, to probably $300,000 per annum to-day. There is no 
longer any necessity for the magician to remain upon his poor 
desert island, with Caliban, and write plays for a living. He dis- 
misses Ariel. The Plays cease to appear. 

But Prospero, when he leaves the island, takes Miranda with 
him. She will be well cared for. We will see hereafter that " the 
works of the alphabet " will be " set in a frame;" at heavy cost, 
and wedded to immortality. 

The triumphant statesman /eaves Caliban in possession of tlie 
island 1 He has crawled out from his temporary shelter: 

I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine, for fear of the storm. 

He will devote the remainder of his life to statecraft and phil- 
osophy. He will write no more poetry, 

For at his age 
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble 
And waits upon the judgment. 

But Prospero will not be idle. Like Bacon, he has great 
projects in his head. He says: 

Welcome, sir; 
This cell's my court; here have I few attendants 
And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in. 
My dukedom since you have given me again, 
I will requite you with as good a thing; 
At least bring forth a wonder to content ye. 
As much as me my dukedom. 

That is to say, relieved of the necessities of life, possessed of 
power and fortune he will give the world the Novum Organum, the 
new philosophy, which is to revolutionize the earth and lift up 
mankind. 

And yet, turning, as he does, to these mighty works of his 

mature years, he cannot part, without a sigh, from the labors of 

his youth ; from the sweet and gentle spirit of the imagination — his 

" chick," his genius, his " delicate Ariel ": 

Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I s/mll miss thee ; 
But yet thou shalt have freedom. 

And then, casting his eyes backward, he exults over his mighty 

work: 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLA YS. 235 

Graves, at my command, 
Have waked their sleepers; op'd, and let them forth 
By my so potent art. 

Indeed, a long and mighty procession ! Lear, Titus Andronicus. 
Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Marc Antony, Cleo- 
patra, Augustus Caesar, Timon of Athens, Cymbeline, Alcibiades. 
Pericles, Macbeth, Duncan, Hamlet, King John, Arthur, Richard II.. 
John of Gaunt, Henry IV., Hotspur, Henry V., Henry VI., Richard 
III., Clarence, Henry VIII., Wolsey, Cranmer, Queen Katharine, 
and Anne Boleyn. 

But this rough magic 
I here abjure: and, when I have required 
Some heavenly music (which even now I do) — 

[that is to say, he retains his magic power a little longer to write 
one more play, this farewell drama, The Tempest\ — 

To work mine end upon their senses that 
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff. 
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, 
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound 
I'll drown my book. 

What does this mean ? Certainly that the magician had ended 
his work; that his rough magic was no longer necessary; that he 
would no longer call up the mighty dead from their graves. And 
he dismisses even the poor players through whom he has wrought 
his charm; they also are but spirits, to do his bidding: 

Our revels notv are ended : these our aetors, 
As I foretold ycni, were all spirits, and 
Are melted into air, into thin air: 
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision. 
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces. 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; 
And like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep. 

And this play of The Tempest is placed at the very beginning 
of the great Folio of 1623, as an introduction to the other mighty 
Plays. 

And if this be not the true explanation of this play, wiiere are 
we to find it? If Prosper is Shake-jy!'*^/' (as seems to be conceded), 
or the one for {pro) whom Shake-.f/rr stood, what is the meaning 



236 FRANCIS BACOX THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

of his "abjuring his magic," giving up his work and "drowning 
his book?" And what is that "wonder" he — the man of Strat- 
ford — is to bring forth after he has drowned his book: — some- 
thing more wonderful than Miranda — (the wonderful things) — and 
with which the dismissed Ariel is to have nothing to do? And 
why should Shakspere drown his book and retire to Stratford, and 
write no more plays, thus abjuring his magic? Do you imagine 
that the man who would sue a neighbor for two shillings loaned; 
or who would sell a load of stone to the town for ten pence; or 
who would charge his guest's wine-bill to the parisli, wouldj if he 
had the capacity to produce an unlimited succession of Hamlets, 
Lears and Macbcths, worth thousands of pounds, have drowned his 
book, and gone home and brewed beer and sucked his thumbs for 
several years, until drunkenness and death came to his relief? 

And is there any likeness between the princely, benevolent and 
magnanimous character of Prospero and that of the man of Strat- 
ford ? 

XIV. Kingcraft. 

Bacon believed in a monarchy, but in a constitutional mon- 
archy, restrained by a liberty-loving aristocracy, with justice and 
fair play for the humbler classes. 

He, however, was utterly opposed to all royal despotism. He 
showed, as the leader of the people in the House of Commons, 
that he was ready to use the power of Parliament to restrain the 
unlimited arrogance of the crown. He saw that one great obsta- 
cle to liberty was the popular idea of the divine right of kings. 
We can hardly appreciate to-day the full force of that sentiment 
as it then existed. Hence, in the Plays, he labors to reduce the 
king to the level of other men, or below it. He represents John as a 
cowardly knave, a truckler to a foreign power, a would-be murderer, 
and an altogether worthless creature. Richard II. is little better — 
a frivolous, weak-witted, corrupt, sordid, dishonest fool. 

He puts into his mouth the old-time opinion of the heaven-dele- 
gated powers of a king: 

Not all the water of the rough, rude sea 
Can wash the balm from an anointed king: 
The breath of worldly men cannot depose 
The deputy elected by the Lord: 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 237 

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd, 

To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, 

Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay 

A glorious angel ! then, if angels fight. 

Weak men must fall, for Heaven still guards the right ! 

And then the poet proceeds to show that this is all nonsense: 
that the "breath of worldly men " can, and that it in fact does 
depose him; and that not an angel stirs in all the vasty courts of 
heaven to defend his cause. 

And then he perforates the whole theory still further by making 
the King himself exclaim: 

Let's choose executors and talk of wills; 

And yet not so; for what can we bequeath 

Save our deposed bodies to the ground? 

Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's, 

And nothing can we call our own but death; 

And that small model of the barren earth. 

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. 

For Heaven's sake let us sit upon the ground, 

And tell sad stories of the death of kings: 

How some have been depos'd. some slain in war. 

Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd; 

Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping killed. 

All murder' d. For within the hollow crown 

That rounds the mortal temples of a king. 

Death keeps his court; and there the antic sits. 

Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; 

Allowing him a breath, a little scene. 

To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; 

Infusing him with self and vain conceit; 

As if this flesh, which walls about our life, 

Were brass impregnable: and humored thus. 

Comes at the last, and, with a little pin. 

Bores through his castle Vv'alls, and, — farewell, king? 

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood 

With solemn reverence; throw away respect. 

Tradition, form and ceremonious duty. 

For you have but mistook me all this while: 

I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief. 

Need friends. Subjected thus, 

How can you say to me — I am a king ! 

Surely this must have sounded strangely in the ears of a Lon- 
don audience of the sixteenth century, who had been taught to 
regard the king as anointed of Heaven and the actual viceregent of 
God on earth, whose very touch was capable of working miracles 
in the cure of disease, possessing therein a power exercised on 



2 28 FJ^ANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

earth aforetime only by the Savior and his saints. And the play 
concludes with the murder of Richard. 

And then comes Henry IV.. usurper, murderer; and the poet 
makes him frankly confess his villainy: 

Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed; 

And hear, I think, the very latest counsel 

That ever I shall breathe. Heaven knows, my son, 

By what by-paths and indirect, crooked ways 

I met this crown. 

And yet he lives to a ripe old age, and establishes a dynasty on 
the corner-stone of the murder of Richard II. 

And we have the same lesson of contempt for kings taught in 
Lear: 

They told me I was everything. But when the rain came to wet me once, and 
the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding, 
there I found them, there I smelt them out.' 

And in The Tempest we have this expression: 

What care these roarers for the name of king?' 

Is not the moral plain: — that kings are nothing more than men; 
that Heaven did not ordain them, and does not protect them; and 
that a king has no right to hold his place any longer than he 
behaves himself? 

His son, Henry V., is the best of the lot — he is the hero-king; 
but even he rises out of a shameful youth; he is the associate of 
the most degraded; the companion of profligate men and women, 
of highwaymen and pick-pockets. And even in his mouth the 
poet puts the same declaration of the hollowness of royal preten- 
sions. King Henry V. says, while in disguise: 

I think the King is but a man as I am; the violet smells to him as it 
doth to me; the element shews to him as it doth to me; all his senses have 
but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears 
but a man.^' 

We turn to Henry VI., and we find him a shallow, empty imbe- 
cile, below the measure even of contempt. 

In Richard III. we have a horrible monster; a wild beast; a liar, 
perjurer, murderer; a remorseless, bloody, man-eating tiger of the 
jungles. 

' Lear, iv, 6. ' Te!n/>e.st, i, i. ^ Henry V., iv. i. 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLA YS. j.y 

In Henry VIII. we have a king divorcing a sainted angel, 
as we are told, under the plea of conscience, to marry a 
frivolous woman, in obedience to the incitements of sensual 
passion. 

And this is the whole catalogue of royal representatives 
brought on the stage by Shakespeare ! 

And these Plays educated the English people, and prepared the 
way for the day when Charles I. was brought to trial and the 
scaffold. 

If Bacon intended to strike deadly blows at the idea of divine 
right, and irresponsible royal authority, in England, certainly he 
accomplished his object in these " Histories" of English kings. It 
may be that the Reform he had intended graduated into the Revo- 
lution which he had not intended. He could not foresee Cromwell 
and the Independents; and yet, that storm being past, England is 
enjoying the results of his purposes, in its wise constitutional mon- 
archy: — the spirit of liberty wedded to the conservative forms of 
antiquity. 

XV. Teaching History. 

But there is another motive in these Plays. They are teachers 
of history. It is probable that the series of historical dramas 
began with William the Conqueror, for we find Shakspere, in an 
obscene anecdote, which tradition records, referring to himself as 
William the Conqueror, and to Burbadge as Richard III. Then we 
have Shakespeare's King John. In Marlowe we have the play of 
Edward II. Among the doubtful plays ascribed to the pen of 
Shakespeare is the play of Edward III. Then follows Richard II.; 
then, in due and consecutive order, Henry IV., first and second 
parts; then Henry V.j then Henry VI, first, second and third parts; 
then Richard III; there is no play of Henry VII. {but Bacon writes 
a history of Henry VII., taking up the story just where the play 
of Richard III. leaves it); then the series of plays ends with 
Henry VIII.; and the cipher narrative probably gives us the whole 
history of the reign of Elizabeth. 

All these plays tended to make history familiar to the common 
people, and we find testimony to that effect in the writings of the 
day. 



240 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

XVI. Patriotism. 

But there is another purpose transparently revealed in the Plays. 
It was to infuse the people with a sense of devotion to their native- 
land. Speaking of national patriotism, Swinburne says: 

Assuredly, no poet ever had more than he (Shakespeare); not even the king of 
men and poets who fought at Marathon and sang at Salamis; much less had any 
or has any one of our own, from Milton on to Campbell and from Campbell to 
Tennyson. In the mightiest chorus of Kitig Henry V. we hear the pealing ring of 
the same great English trumpet that was yet to sound over the battle of the Baltic' 

And the same writer speaks of 

The national side of Shakespeare's genius, the heroic vein of patriotism that runs, 
like a thread of living fire, through the world-wide range of his omnipresent spirit. - 

We turn to Bacon, and we find the same great patriotic inspira- 
tions. His mind took in all mankind, but the love of his heart 
centered on England. His thoughts were bent to increase her 
glory and add to her security from foreign foes. To do this he 
saw that it was necessary to keep up the military spirit of the 
people. He says: 

But above all, for empire and greatness, it importeth most that a nation do 
profess arms as their principal honor, study and occupation. . . . No nation which 
doth not directly profess arms may look to have greatness fall into their mouths; 
and, on the other side, it is a most certain oracle of time that those nations that 
continue long in that profession (as the Romans and Turks principally have done) 
do wonders; and those that have professed arms but for an age have, notwith- 
standing, commonly attained that greatness in that age which maintaineth them 
long after, when the profession and exercise of arms hath grown to decay.* 

And again he says: 

Walled towns, stored arsenals and armories, goodly races of horse, chariots of 
war, elephants, ordnance, artillery and the like; all this but a sheep in a lion's 
skin, except the breed ^nA disposition of the people be stout and war-like.'' 

We turn to Shakespeare, and we find him referring to English- 
men as 

Feared for their breed and famous by their birth. 

Here is the whole sentence. How exultantly does he depict his 

own country — "that little body with a mighty heart," as he calls< 

it elsewhere: 

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle. 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise. 
This fortress built by Nature for herself 

* Swinburne, 5/»rt'j' ^y^.%a.t., p. 113. ' Essay xxix, Tlie True Greatness c/ Kingdoms. 

'Ibid., p. 73. Mbid. 



THE PURPOSES OE THE PLA YS. 241 

Against infection and the hand of war; 

This happy breed of dioi, this little world. 

This precious stone set in the silver sea, 

Which serves it in the office of a wall, 

Or as a moat defensive to a house, 

Against the envy of less happier lands; 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 

This teeming womb of royal kings, 

Fear'd for their Anvi/and famous by their birth, 

Renowned for their deeds as far from home 

(For Christian service and true chivalry), 

As is the sepulcher in stubborn Jewry 

Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son; 

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, 

Dear for her reputation through the world.' 

And again he speaks of England as 

Hedged in with the main, 
That water-walled bulwark, still secure 
And confident from foreign purposes.'' 

And again he says: 

Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas, 
Which he has given for fence impregnable.^ 



And again he says: 

Which stands 



And again: 
And again: 



As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in 
W^ith rocks unscalable and roaring waters,'' 

Britain is 
A world by itself.^ 

r the world's volume, 
Our Britain is as (jf it, but not in it; 
In a great pool, a swan's nest/ 



And, while Shakespeare alludes to the sea as England's "water- 
walled bulwark," Bacon speaks of ships as the "walls" of Eng- 
land. And he says: 

To be master of the sea is an abridgment of a monarchy.'' 

And he further says: 

No man can by care-taking (as the Scripture saith) " add a cubit to his stature " 
in this little model of a man's body, but in the great fame of kingdoms and com- 
monwealths it is in the power of princes, or estates, to add amplitude and great- 
ness to their kingdoms; for by introducing such ordinances, constitutions and 
customs as we have now touched, thev tnay sow greatness to their posterity and suc- 
cession; but these things are commonly not Qbserved, but left to take their chance. ** 

^ Rickard II ., ii, i. ^ Cymbeline^ iii, i. ''Essay, True Greatness 0/ Kiugdoms. 

• King John, W, \. ^ j^jfj jjj , sibid. 

^jd Henry VI. ^ iv. i. 'Ibid., iii, 4. 



242 



FRANCIS BACON THE ATTFIOR OF THE PLAYS. 



And was he not, in these appeals to national heroism, ^^soivi/ig 
i:;rrat/iess to posterity," and helping to create, or maintain, that warlike 
" breed " which has since carried the banners of conquest over a 
great part of the earth's surface? One can imagine how the eyes 
of those swarming audiences at the Fortune and the Curtain must 
have snapped with delight at the pictures of English valor on the 
field of Agincourt, as depicted in Henry V.j or at the representation 
of that tremendousSoldier Talbot, in -/^i?;/;j F/., dying like a lion 
at bay, with his noble boy by his side. How the 'prentices must 
have roared ! How the mob must have raved ! How even the 
gentlemen must have drawn deep breaths of patriotic inspiration 
from such scenes ! Imagine the London of to-day going wild over 
the work of some great genius, depicting, in the midst of splendid 
poetry, Wellington and Nelson ! 

But there are many other purposes revealed in these Plays. 

XVII. Dueling. 

The writer of the Plays was opposed to the practice of dueling. 

One commentator (H. T.), in a note to the play of Twelfth 

Night, says: 

It was the plainly evident intention of Shakespeare, in this play, to place the 
practice of dueling in a ridiculous light. Dueling was in high fashion at this 
period — a perfect rage for it existed, and a man was distinguished or valued in 
the select circles of society in proportion to his skill and courage in this savage 
and murderous practice. Our poet well knew the power of ridicule often exceeded 
that of the law, and in the combat between the valiant Sir Andrew Aguecheek and 
the disguised Viola, he has placed the custom in an eminently absurd situation. 
Mr. Chalmers supposes that his attention was drawn to it by an edict of James I., 
issued in the year 1613. From his remarks we quote the following; 

In Tivelfth Night Shakespeare tried to effect by ridicule what the state was 
unable to perform by legislation. The duels which were so incorrigibly frequent 
in that age were thrown into a ridiculous light by the affair between Viola and 
Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Sir Francis Bacon had lamented, in the House of Com- 
mons, on the 3d of March, 1609-10, the great difficulty of redressing the evil of 
duels, owing to the corruption of man's nature. King James tried to effect what 
the Parliament had despaired of effecting, and in 1613 he issued "An edict and 
censure against private combats," which was conceived with great vigor, and 
expressed with decisive force; but whether with the help of Bacon or not I am 
unable to ascertain. 

There can be no question that the Proposition for the -Repressing 
of Singular Combats or Duels, in 16 13, came from the hand of Bacon. 
We find it given as his in Spedding's Life and IVorks.^ He pro- 
posed to exclude all duelists from the King's presence, because 

' Vol. iv., p. 397. 



THE PURPOSES OE THE PLA YS. 243 

"there is no good spirit but will think himself in darkness, if he be 
debarred ... of access and approach to the sovereign." He also 
proposed a prosecution in the Star Chamber, and a heavy, irremiss- 
ible fine. A proclamation to this effect was issued by the King. 
We also have the "charge of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, His Maj- 
esty's Attorney-General, touching duels, upon an information in 
the Star Chamber against Priest and Wright." After commenting 
on his regret that the offenders were not greater personages. Bacon 
says: 

Nay, I should think, my lords, that men of birth and quality will leave the 
practice, when it begins to be vilified, and come so low as to barbers, surgeons 
and butchers, and such base mechanical persons. 

In the course of the charge he says: 

It is a miserable effect when young men, full of towardness and hope, such as 
the poets call aiironv filii, sons of the morning, in whom the comfort and expecta- 
tions of their friends consisteth, shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain 
manner. ... So as your lordships see what a desperate evil this is; it troubleth 
peace, it disfurnisheth war, it bringeth calamity upon private men, peril upon the 
state, and contempt upon the law. 

And in this charge we find Bacon using the same sort of argu- 
ment used by Shakespeare in Othello. 
Bacon says: 

There was a combat of this kind performed by two persons of quality of the 
Turks, wherein one of them was slain; the other party was convented before the 
council of Bassaes. The manner of the reprehension was in these words: 

How durst you undertake to fight one with the other? Are there not Chris- 
tians enough to kill? Did you not know that whether of you should be slain, the 
l<jss would be the great Seigneour's? 

The writer of Shakespeare evidently had this incident in his 

mind, and had also knowledge of the fact that the Turks did not 

permit duels, when he put into the mouth of Othello these words: 

Why, how now, ho ! from whence ariseth this? 

Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do thai 

Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites? ' 

For Christian shame ! put by this barbarous brawl ! ' 

Bacon secured the conviction of Priest and Wright, and pre- 
pared a decree of the Star Chamber, which was ordered read in 
every shire in the kingdom. 

And we find the same idea and beliefs in Shakespeare which 
are contained in this decree. He says: 

' Othello, ii, 3. 



244 /'A'.INC/S BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 

If wrongs be evil, and enforce us kill, 
What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill ! ' 
And again: 

Your words have took such pains, as if they labored 
To bring manslaughter into form, set quarreling 
Upon the head of valor; which, indeed, 
Is valor misbegot, and came into the world 
When sects and factions were but newly born.'' 

XVIII. Other Purposes. 

I might go on and give many other instances to show that the 
purposes revealed in the Plays are the same which governed Fran- 
cis Bacon. I might point to Bacon's disapprobation of supersti- 
tion, his essay on the subject, and the very effective way in which 
one kind of superstition is ridiculed in the case of the pretended 
blind man at St. Albans, in the play of Henry VI., exposed by the 
shrewdness of the Duke Humphrey. 

I might further note that Bacon wrote an essay against popular 

prophecies; and Knight notes' that the Fool \\\ Lear ridicules these 

things, as in: 

Then comes the time, who lives to see 't, 
When going shall be used with feet.* 

Says Knight: 

Nor was the introduction of such a mock prophecy mere idle buffoonery. 
There can be no question, from the statutes that were directed against these stimu- 
lants to popular credulity, that they were considered of importance in Shake- 
speare's day. Bacon's essay Of Prophecies shows that the philosopher gravely 
denounced what our poel pleasantly ridiculed. 

I might show how, in Love's L.abor Lost, the absurd fashions of 
language then prevalent among the fastidious at court were mocked 
at and ridiculed in the very spirit of Bacon. I might note the fact 
that Bacon expressed his disapprobation of tobacco, and that no 
reference is had to it in all the Plays, although it is abundantly 
referred to in the writings of Ben Jonson and other dramatists 
of the period. I might refer to Bacon's disapprobation of the 
superstition connected with wedding-rings, and to the fact that 
no wedding-ring is ever referred to in the Plays. These are 
little things in themselves, but they are cumulative as matters of 
evidence. 

1 Titjis Androtticus, iii, 5. ^ Ibid. ^ Notes of act iii of Lear, p. 440. '' Act iii, scene 2. 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLAYS. 245 

In conclusion, I would call attention to the fact that nowhere 
in the Plays is vice or wickedness made admirable. Even in the 
case of old Sir John Falstaff, whose wit was as keen, sententious 
and profound as Bacon's own Essays; even in his case we see him, 
in the close of 2d Henry IV., humiliated, disgraced and sent to 
prison; while the Chief Justice, representing the majesty of law and 
civilization, is lifted up from fear and danger to the greatest heights 
of dignity and honor. The old knight "dies of a sweat," and 
every one of his associates comes to a dishonored and shameful 
death. 

Lamartine says: 

It is as a moralist that Shakespeare excels. . . . His works cannot fail to ele- 
vate the mind by the purity of the morals they inculcate. They breathe so strong 
a belief in virtue, so steady an adherence to good principles, united to such a vig- 
orous tone of honor as testifies to the author's excellence as a moralist; nay, as a 
Christian. 

And everywhere in the Plays we see the cultured citizen of the 
schools and colleges striving to elevate and civilize a rude and 
barbarous age. The heart of the philosopher and philanthropist 
penetrates through wit and poetry and dramatic incident, in every 
act and scene from The Tempest to Cymbeline. 



I 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE REASONS FOR CONCEALMENT. 

Some dear cause 
Will in concealment wrap me up awhile. 
When I am known aright, you shall not grieve 
Lending me this acquaintance. 

F Bacon wrote the Plays, why did he not acknowledge thein ? 
This is the question that will be asked by many. 

I. Bacon's Social Position, 



What was Francis Bacon in social position ? He was an aristo- 
crat of the aristocrats. His grandfather had been the tutor of the 
King. His father had been for twenty years Lord Keeper of the 
Seal under Elizabeth. His uncle Burleigh was Lord Treasurer of 
the kingdom. His cousin Robert was Lord Secretary, and after- 
ward became the Earl of Salisbury. He also " claims close cousinry 
with Elizabeth and Anne Russell (daughters of Lord John Russell) 
and with the witty and licentious race of Killigrews, and with the 
future statesman and diplomatist Sir Edward Hoby.'" 

Francis aspired to be, like his father, Lord Chancellor of the 
kingdom. Says Hep worth Dixon: 

Bacon seemed born to power. His kinsmen filled the highest posts. The 
sovereign liked him, for he had the bloom of cheek, the fiame of wit, the weight oi 
sense, which the great Queen sought in men who stood about her throne. His 
powers were ever ready, ever equal. Masters of eloquence and epigram praised 
him as one of them, or one above them, in their peculiar arts. Jonson tells us he 
commanded when he spoke, and had his judges pleased or angry at his will. 
Raleigh tells us he combined the most rare of gifts, for while Cecil could talk 
and not write, Howard write and not talk, he alone could both talk and write. 
Nor were these gifts all flash and foam. If no one at the court could match his 
tongue of fire, so no one in the House of Commons could breast him in the race of 
work. He put the dunce to flight, the drudge to shame. If he soared high above 
rivals in his most passionate plav of speech, he never met a rival in the dull, dry 
task of ordinary toil. Raleigh, Hyde and Cecil had small chance against him in 
debate; in committee Yelverton and Coke had none. . . . 

' Hepworth Di.xon, Personal I lisicyy e>/ Lord Bacon, p. i6. 

246 



THE REASONS FOR CONCEALMENT. 247 

He sought place, never man with more persistent haste; for his big brain beat 
with a victorious consciousness of parts; he hungered, as for food, to rule and 
bless mankind. . . . While men of far lower birth and claims got posts and 
honors, solicitorships, judgeships, embassies, portfolios, how came this strong 
man to pass the age of forty-six without gaining power or place ? ' 

/^ And remember, good reader, that it is precisely during this 
period, before Bacon was forty-six, and while, as I have shown, he 
was " poor and working for bread," that the Shakespeare Plays were 
produced; and that after he obtained place and wealth they ceased 
to appear; although Shakspere was still living in Stratford and con- 
tinued to live there for ten years to come. Why was it that the fount- 
ain of Shakespeare's song closed as soon as Bacon's necessities ended? 
II. The Lawyers then the Plav-Writers. 

Bacon took to the law. He was born to it. It was the only 

avenue open to him. Richard Grant White says — and, remember, 

he is no '' Baconian " : 

There was no regular army in Elizabeth's time; and the younger sons of gen- 
tlemen not rich, and of well-to-do yeomen, flocked to the church and to the bar; 
and as the former had ceased to be a stepping-stone to power and wealth, while the 
latter was gaining in that regard, most of these young men became attorneys or 
barristers. But then, as now, the early years of professional life were seasons of 
sharp trial and bitter disappointment. Necessity pressed sorely or pleasure wooed 
resistlessly; and the slender purse wasted rapidly away while the young lawyer 
awaited the employment that did not come. He knew then, as now he knows, the 
heart-sickness that waits on hope deferred; nay, he felt, as now he sometimes feels, 
the tooth of hunger gnawing through the principles and firm resolves that partition 
a life of honor and self-respect from one darkened by conscious loss of rectituQe, 
if not by open shame. Happy (yet, it may be, O unhappy) he who now in such 
a strait can wield the pen of a ready writer ! For the press, perchance, may afford 
him a support which, though temporary and precarious, will hold him up until he 
can stand upon more stable ground. But in the reigns of Good Queen Bess and 
Gentle Jamie there was no press. There was, however, an incessant demand for 
new plays. Play-going was the chief intellectual recreation of that day for all 
classes, high and low. It is not extravagant to say that there were then more new 
plays produced in London in one month than there are now in both Great Britain 
and Ireland in a whole year. To play-writing, therefore, the needy and gifted 
young lawyer turned his hand at that day as he does now to journalism. 

III. The Law-Courts AND THE Plays. "The Misfortunes of 

Arthur." 

And the connection between the lawyers and the players was, 
in some sense, a close one. It was the custom for the great law- 
schools to furnish dramatic representations for the entertainment 

' Hepworth Dixon, Personal History 0/ Lord Bacon. 



248 FRAXCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

of the court and the nobility. Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, as I 
have shown, made its first appearance, not on the stage of the 
Curtain or the Fortune theater, but in an entertainment given 
by the students of Gray's Inn (Bacon's law-school); and Shake- 
speare's comedy of Twelfth Night was first acted before the 
''benchers" of the Middle Temple, who employed professional 
players to act before them every year. We know these facts, as 
to the two plays named, almost by accident. How many more of 
the so-called Shakespeare Plays first saw the light on the boards 
of those law students, at their great entertainments, we do not 
know.' 

We find in Dodsleys Old Plays a play called The Misfortunes of 
Arthur. The title-leaf says; 

Certaine Devises and Shews presented to her Majestic by the Gentlemen of 
Grave's-Inne, at her Highnesse Court in Greenewich, the twenty-eighth day of 
February, in the thirtieth year of her Majestie's most happy Raigne. At London. 
Printed by Robert Robinson. 1587.'^ 

Mr. Collier wrote a preface to it, in which he says: 

It appears that eight persons, members of the Society of Gray's Inn, were 
engaged in the production of llie Misfortunes of Arthur, for the entertainment of 
Queen Elizabeth, at Greenwich, on the 2Sth day of February, 1587-8, viz.: 
Thomas Hughes, the author of the whole body of the tragedy; William Fullbecke, 
who wrote two speeches substituted on the representation and appended to the old 
printed copy; Nicholas Trotte, who furnished the introduction; Francis Flower, 
who penned choruses for the first artd second acts; Christopher Yelverton, Francis 
Bacon, and John Lancaster, who devised the dumb-show, then usually accompany- 
ing such performances; and a person of the name of Penruddock, who, assisted 
by Flower and Lancaster, directed the proceedings at court. Regarding Hughes 
and Trotte no information has survived. . . . The " Maister Francis Bacon!' 
spoken of at the conclusion of the piece was, of course, no other than (the great) 
Bacon; and it is a new feature in his biography, though not, perhaps, very promi- 
nent nor important, that he u<as so nearly concerned in the preparation of a play at 
court. In February, 1587-8, he had just commenced his twenty-eighth year. . . . 

The Misfortunes of Arthur is a dramatic composition only known to exist in 
the Garrick Collection. Judging from internal evidence, it seems to have been 
printed with unusual care, under the superintendence of the principal author. . . . 
The mere rarity of this unique drama would not have recommended it to our 
notice; but it is not likely that such a man as Bacon would have lent his aid 
to the production of a piece which was not intrinsically good; and, tmless we 
much mistake, there is a richer and nobler vein of poetry running through it 
than is to he found in any prcT'ious work of the kind. ... It forms a sort of 
connecting link between such pieces of unimpassioned formality as Ferrex and 
Porrex, and rule-rejecting historical plays, as Shakespeare found them and left 
them. 

iHalliwcIl-Phillipps, Outlines Life of Sliali.. p. raS. "Hazlitt, vol. iv. p. 249. 



THE REASOXS FOR CONCEALMENT. 249 

I will discuss tliis play and its merits at more length hereafter, 
and will make but one or two observations upon it at this time. 

1. It does not seem to me probable, if eight young lawyers 
were preparing a play for the court, and one of them was Francis 
Bacon, with his ready pen and unlimited command of language, 
that he would confine himself to "the dumb-show." It will be 
remembered that he wrote the words of certain masks that were 
acted before the court. 

And if it be true that this youthful performance reveals poetry 
of a higher order than anything that had preceded, is it more 
natural to suppose it the product of the mightiest genius of his 
age, who was, by his own confession, "a concealed poet," or the 
work of one Thomas Hughes, who never, in the remainder of his life, 
produced anything w^orth remembering? And we will see, here- 
after, that the poetry of this play is most strikingly Shakespearean. 

2. Collier says he knows nothing of Thomas Hughes and Nich- 
olas Trotte. Can Thomas Hughes, the companion of Bacon in 
Gray's Inn, and his co-laborer in preparing this play, be the same 
Hughes referred to in that line in one of the Shakespeare sonnets 
which has so perplexed the commentators — 

A man in hue, all hues in his controlling; — 

and which has been supposed by many to refer to some man of 
the name of Hughes ? 

3. As to the identity of Nicholas Trotte there can be no ques- 
tion. He is the same Nicholas Trotte with whom Bacon carried 
on a long correspondence on the subject of money loaned by him 
to Bacon at divers and sundry times. 

But this is not the place to discuss the play of The Misfortunes 
flf Arthur. I refer to it now only to show how naturally Bacon 
might drift into writing for the stage. As: 

1. Bacon is poor and in need of money. 

2. Bacon assists in getting up a play for his law-school, Gray's 
Inn, if he does not write the greater part of it. 

3. The Comedy of Errors appears at Gray's Inn for the first time, 
acted by Shakspere's company. 

4. It was customary for impecunious lawyers in that age to turn 
an honest penny by writing for the stage. 



250 FA'AXCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Here, then, we have the man, the ability, the necessity, the cus- 
tom, the opportunity. Bacon and Shakspere both on the boards 
of Gray's Inn at the same time^ — one directing, the other acting. 

If The Misfortunes of Artliiir wA'i, really Bacon's work, and if it 
was a success on the stage, how natural that he should go farther 
in the same direction. Poetry is, as Bacon tells us, a "lust of the 
earth" — a something that springs up from the mind like the rank 
growths of vegetation from the ground; it is, as Shakespeare says: 

A gum which oozes 
From whence 'tis nourished. 

We see a picture of the poet at this age in the description of 
Hepworth Dixon; it is not a description of a philosopher: 

Like the ways of all deep dreamers, his habits are odd, and vex Lady Anne's 
affectionate and methodical heart. The boy sits up late at night, drinks his ale- 
posset to make him sleep, starts out of bed ere it is light, or, may be, as the 
whimsy takes him, lolls and dreams till noon, musing, says the good lady, with 
loving pity, on — she knows not what!' 

IV. Why he Seeks a Disguise. 

But if the poetical, the dramatical, the creative instinct is upon 
him, shall he venture to put forth the plays he produces in his own 
name ? No: there are many reasons say him nay. . In the first place, 
he knows they are youthful and immature performances. In the 
second place, it will grieve his good, pious mother to know that he 
doth "mum and mask and sinfully revel." In the third place, the 
reputation of a poet will not materially assist him up those long, 
steep stairs that lead to the seat his great father occupied. And, 
therefore, so he says, " \ prof ess not to be a poet." Therefore will he 
put forth his attempts in the name of Thomas Hughes, or any 
other friend; or of Marlowe, or of Shakspere, or of any other con- 
venient mask. Hath he it not in his mind to be a great reformer; 
to reconstruct the laws of the kingdom, and to recast the philoso- 
phy of mankind, hurling down Aristotle and the schoolmen from 
their disputatious pedestals, and erecting a system that shall make 
men better because happier, and happier because wiser in the 
knowledge of the nature which surrounds them ? Poetry is but a 
''work of his recreation" — a something he cannot help but yield to, 

1 Pcrsanal Histcry oj" Lord Bacon ^ p. 35. 




THE REASONS EOK CONCEALMENT. 251 

but of which he is half-ashamed. He will write it because he is 
forced to sing, as the bird sings; because his soul is full; because 
he is obeying the purpose for which he was created. But publish his- 
productions? No. And therefore he "professes" not to be a poet. 
/ And, moreover, he is naturally given to secretiveness. There 
was a strong tendency in the man to subterranean methods. We 
find him writing letters in the name of Essex and in the name of 
his brother Anthony. He went so far, in a letter written by him. 
in the name of his brother, to Essex, to refer back to himself as 
follows (the letter and Essex's reply, also ivrittcn by him, being 
intended for the Queen's eye): ^ 

And to this purpose I do assure your Lordship that my brother, Francis Bacon, 
who is too wise (I think) to be abused, and too honest to abuse, thout{h he be more 
reserved in all particulars than is needful, yet, etc. 

And we positively know, from his letter to Sir John Davies, in 
which he speaks of himself as "a concealed poet," that he was the 
author of poetical compositions, of some kind, which he did not 
acknowledge, and which must certainly have gone about in the 
names of other men. And he says himself that, with a purpose to 
help Essex regain the good graces of the Queen, he wrote a sonnet 
which he passed off upon the Queen as the work of Essex. 

We remember that Walter Scott resorted to a similar system of 
secretiveness. After he had established for himself a reputation as 
a successful poet, he made up his mind to venture upon the com- 
position of prose romances; and fearing that a failure in the new 
field of effort might compromise his character as a man of genius, 
already established by his poems, he put forth his first novel, 
Waverly, without any name on the title-page; and then issued a 
series of novels as by " the author of IVaverly." And in his day 
there were books written to show by parallel thoughts and expres- 
sions that Scott was really the author of those romances, just as 
books are now written on the Bacon-Shakespeare question. > 

And who does not remember that the author of T/w Letters of 
Junius died and made no sign of confession ? 

Bacon doubtless found a great advantage in writing thus under 
a mask. The man who sets forth his thoughts in his own name 
knows that the public will constantly strive to connect his utter- 
ances with his personal character; to trace home his opinions to- 



252 FRAXC/S BACOX THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

his personal history and circumstances; and lie is therefore neces- 
sarily always on his guard not to say anything, even in a work of 
fiction, that he would not be willing to father as part of his own 
natural reflections. 

Richard Grant White says: 

Shakespeare's freedom in the use of words was but a part of that conscious 
irresponsibility to critical rule which had such an important influence upon the 
development of his whole dramatic style. To the workings of his genius under 
this entire unconsciousness of restraint we owe the grandest and the most delicate 
beauties of his poetry, his poignant expressions of emotion, and his richest and 
subtlest passages of humor. For the superiority of his work is just in proportion 
to his carelessness of literary criticism. . , . His plays were mere entertainments 
for the general public, written not to be read, but to be spoken; written as busi- 
ness, just as Rogers wrote money circulars, or as Bryant writes leading articles. 
This freedom was suited to the unparalleled richness and spontaneousness of his 
thought, of which it was, in fact, partly the result, and itself partly the condition.' 

The Anatomy of Melancholy w^'i first published, not in the name 
of the alleged author, Robert Burton, but under the novi de plume of 
"Democritus, Junior," and in the address to the reader the author 
says: 

Gentle reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know whf^' ar''c t 
personate actor this is that so insolently intrudes upon this common theater, to the 
world's view, arrogating another man's name. ... I would not willingly be 
known. . . . 'Tis for no such respect I shroud myself under his name; but in an 
unknow)! habit to assiiiiic a /itt/r >ho>y li/wrty and ffi-cdom of speech. 

We will see hereafter that there are strong reasons for believing 
that Francis Bacon wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy, and that in 
these words we have his own explanation of one of the many rea- 
sons for his many disguises. 

V. Low State of the Dramatic Art. 

But there was another reason why an ambitious young aristo- 
crat, and lawyer, and would-be Lord-Chancellor, should hesitate to 
avow that he was a writer of plays. 

Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

It must be borne in mind that actors occupied an inferior position in society, 
and that even the vocation of a dramatic writer ivas considered scarcely respectable!^ 

The first theater ever erected in England, or, so far as I am 
aware, in any country, in modern times, was built in London in 

1 I.!/,- and Genius I'/S/iak.. i>. 220. ^ Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines I.i/e 0/ Ska/:., p. 6. 



THE REASONS FOR CONCEALMENT. 



^53 



1575 — -five years before Bacon returned from the court of France, 

and six years before he reached the age of twenty-one years. The 

man and the instrumentality came together. A writer upon the 

subject says: 

The public authorities, more especially those who were inclined to Puritanism, 
exerted themselves in every possible way to repress the performance of plays and 
interludes. They fined and imprisoned the players, even stocked them, and har- 
assed and restrained them to the utmost of their ability. ... In 1575 the players 
were interdicted from the practice of their art (or rather their calling, for it was not 
yet an art), within the limits of the city. 

The legal status of actors was the lowest in the country. 

The act of 14th Elizabeth, "for the punishment of vagabonds," 
included under that name "all fencers, hQ.a.r\Ya.rds, coin>?io?i players in 
interludes, and minstrels, not belonging to any baron of this realm." 

They traveled the country on foot, with packs on their backs, 
and were fed in the " buttery " of the great houses they visited. 

I quote: 

Thus in Greene's Never 'Too Late, in the interview between the player and 
Robert (/.f., Greene), on the latter asking how the player proposed to mend Rob- 
ert's fortune: 

" Why, easily," quoth he, "and greatly to your benefit; for men of my profes- 
sion get by scholars their whole living." 

" What is your profession?" said Roberto. 

" Truly, sir," said he, " I am a player." 

"A player!" quoth Roberto; "I took you rather for a gentleman of great 
living; for if by outward habit men should be answered [judged], I tell you, you 
would be taken for a stibstantial vtan." 

"So am I, where I dwell," quoth the player, "reported able at my proper 
cost to build a wind-mill. " 

He then proceeds to say that at his outset in life he was fain to carry his 
"playing fardel," that is, his bundle of stage properties, "a foot back," but now 
his show of "playing apparel" would sell for more than ;r^200. In the end he 
offers to engage Greene to write plays for him, "for which you will be well paid, 
if you will take the pains." 

If the actors did not engage themselves as the servants of some 

great man, as "the Lord Chamberlain's servants," or "the Lord 

Admiral's servants," or " the Earl of Worcester's servants," they 

were liable under the law, as Edgar says in Lear,' to be " whipped 

from tything to ty thing, and stocked, punished and imprisoned; " 

for by the statute of 39 Elizabeth (1597) and ist of James L (1604), 

as I have shown, the vagabond's punishment was to be "stripped 

naked from the middle upward, and to be whipped until his body 

' Act lii, scene 4. 



254 



FRA.VCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 



was bloody, and to be sent from parish to parish the next straight 
way to the place of his birth." 
Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

Actors were regarded at court in the light of menials, and classed by the pub- 
lic with jugglers and buffoons.' 

The play-houses were inconceivably low and rude. The Lord 
Mayor of London, in 1597, describes the theaters as : 

Ordinary places for vagrant persons, maisterless men, thieves, horse-stealers, 
whoremongers, cozeners, cony-catchers, contrivers of treason, and other idele and 
dangerous persons.* 

Taine says of Shakspere: 

He was a comedian, one of "His Majesty's poor players" — a sad trade, 
degraded in all ages by the contrasts and the falsehoods which it allows: still more 
degraded then by the brutalities of the crowd, who not seldom would stone the 
actors; and by the severities of the magistrates, who would sometimes condemn 
them to lose their ears.* 

Edmund Gayton says, descrmtng the play-houses: 

If it be on a holiday, when sailors, watermen, shoemakers, butchers and 
apprentices are at leisure, then it is good policy to amaze those violent spirits with 
some tearing tragedy, full of fights and skirmishes, as The Giielphs ajid Ghibelines, 
Gret'ks and Trojans, or T/ie Three London Apprentices, which commonly ends in six 
acts, the spectators frequently mounting the stage and making a more bloody 
catastrophe among themselves than the players did. I have known, upon one of 
these festivals, . . . where the players have been appointed, notwithstanding their 
bills to the contrary, to act what the major part of the company had a mind to; 
sometimes Tainbnrlane, sometimes Jitgurth, sometimes llie Jew of Malta, and 
sometimes parts of all these; and at last, none of the three taking, they were 
forced to undress, and put off their tragic habits, and conclude the day with 
The Merry Milkmaid. And unless this were done, and the popular humor 
satisfied, as sometimes it so fortuned that the players were refractory, the benches, 
the tiles, the laths, the stones, oranges, apples, nuts flew about most liberally; 
and as there were mechanics of all professions, who fell every one to his own 
trade, and dissolved an house in an instant and made a ruin of a stately 
fabric* 

Taine thus describes the play-houses of Shakspere's time: 

Great and rude contrivances, awkward in their construction, barbarous in their 
appointments; but a fervid imagination supplied all that they lacked, and hardy 
bodies endured all inconveniences without difficulty. On a dirty site, on the banks 
of the Thames, rose the principal theater, the Globe, a sort of hexagonal tower, 
surrounded by a muddy ditch, on which was hoisted a red flag. The common 
people could enter as well as the rich; there were six-penny, two-penny, even 

■ Outlines Life of Shak., p. 256. " City of London MS. Outlines, p. 214. 

' History 0/ English Literature, book ii, chap, iv, p. 205. 
^ Festivpus Notes on Don Quixote, 1654, p. 271. 



THE REASONS FOR CONCEALMENT. 255 

penny seats; but they could not see it without money. If it rained, and it often 
rains in London, the people in the pit — butchers, mercers, bakers, sailors, appren- 
tices — received the streaming rain upon their heads. I suppose they did not trouble 
themselves about it; it was not so long since they began to pave the streets of 
London, and when men, like these, have had experience of sewers and puddles, 
they are not afraid of catching cold. ' 

While waiting for the piece, they amuse themselves after their fashion, drink 
beer, crack nuts, eat fruits, howl, and now and then resort to their fists; they have 
been known to fall upon the actors, and turn the theater upside down. At other 
times, when they were dissatisfied, they went to the tavern, to gi-ae the poet a hid- 
ing, or toss him in a blanket. . . . When the beer took effect, there was a great 
upturned barrel in the pit, a peculiar receptacle for general use. The smell rises, 
and then comes the cry, " Burn the juniper ! " They burn some in a plate on the 
stage, and the heavy smoke fills the air. Certainly the folk there assembled could 
scarcely get disgusted at anything, and cannot have had sensitive noses. In the 
time of Rabelais there was not much cleanliness to speak of. Remember that 
they were hardly out of the Middle Ages, and that in the Middle Ages man lived 
on a dung-hill. 

Above them, on the stage, were the spectators able to pay a shilling, the ele- 
gant people, the gentlefolk. These were sheltered from the rain, and, if they 
chose to pay an extra shilling, could have a stool. To this were reduced the pre- 
rogatives of rank and the devices of comfort; it often happened that there were 
not stools enough; then they lie down on the ground; this was not a time to be 
dainty. They play cards, smoke, insult the pit, who give it them back without 
stinting, and throw apples at them into the bargain. 



< 



The reader can readily conceive that the man must indeed have 
been exceedingly ambitions of fame who would have insisted on 
asserting his title to the authorship of plays acted in such theaters 
before such audiences. Imagine that aristocratic young gentle- 
man, Francis Bacon, born in the royal palace of York Place; an ex- 
attache of the English legation at the French court ; the son of a 
Lord Chancellor; the nephew of a Lord Treasurer; the offspring of 
the virtuous, pious and learned Lady Anne Bacon; with his head 
full of great plans for the reformation of philosophy, law and 
government; and with his eye fixed on the chair his father had 
occupied for twenty years: — imagine him, I say, insisting that 
his name should appear on the play-bills as the poet who wrote 
Mucedo}-us, lamburlaiic, The Jew of Malta, Titus Andronici-ts, Fair 
Em, Sir John Oldcastle, or The Alerry Devil of Edmonton ! Imagine 
the drunken, howling mob of Calibans hunting through Gray's 
Inn to find the son of the Lord Chancellor, in the midst 
of his noble friends, to whip him, or toss him in a blanket, 
because, forsooth, his last play had not pleased their royal 
fancies! 



256 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 

VI. Sharing in ihe Profits (jf the Plav-House. 

But suppose behind all this there was another and a more ter- 
rible consideration. 

Suppose this young nobleman had eked out his miserable 
income by ivritlng plays to sell to tin- theaters. Suppose it was known 
that he had his "second " and " third nights; " that he put into his 
pocket the sweaty pennies of that stinking mob of hoodlums, 
sailors, 'prentices, thieves, rowdies and prostitutes; and that 
he had used the funds so obtained to enable him to keep up his 
standing with my Lord of Southampton, and my Earl of Essex, and 
their associates, as a gentleman among gentlemen. Think of it ! 

And this in England, three hundred years ago, when the line of 
caste was almost as deep and black between the gentlemen and 
" the mutable, rank-scented many," as it is to-day in India between 
the Brahmin and the Pariah. Why, to this hour, I am told, there is 
an almost impassable gulf between the nobleman and the trades- 
man of great Britain. ' Then, as Burton says in The Anatomy of 
Melancholy., " idleness was the mark of nobility." To earn money 
in any kind of trade was despicable. To have earned it by sharing 
in the pennies and shillings taken in at the door, or on the stage of 
the play-house, would have been utterly damnable in any gentle- 
man. It would have involved a loss of social position worse than 
death. One will have to read Thackeray's story of Miss Shions 
Husband to find a parallel for it. 

VII. PoLiTiCA], Considerations. 

But we have seen that the hiring of actors of Shakspere's com- 
pany to perform the play of Richard II., by the followers of the 
Earl of Essex, the day before the attempt to " rase the city " and 
seize the person of the Queen (even as Monmouth seized the person 
of Richard II.), and compel a deposition by like means, was one of 
the counts in the indictment against Essex, which cost him his 
head. -, In other words, the intent of the play was treasonable, and 
was so understood at the time. " Know you not," said Queen 
Elizabeth, "that/ am Richard II.?" And I have shown good 
reason to believe that all the historical Plays, to say nothing of 
Julius Co'.sar, were written with intent to popularize rebellion 
against tyrants. 



THE REASONS EOK COXCEALMEyX. 



257 



"The poor player," Will Shakspere, might have written such 
plays solely for the pence and shillings there were in them, for he had 
nothing to do with politics: — he was a legal vagabond, a "vassal 
actor," a social outcast ; but if Francis Bacon, the able and ambitious 
Francis Bacon, the rival of Cecil, the friend of Southampton and 
Essex; the lawyer, politician, member of Parliament, courtier, be- 
longing to the party that desired to bring in the Scotch King and 
drive the aged Queen from the throne — if //t' had acknowledged the 
authorship of the Plays, the inference would have been irresistible in 
the mind of the court, that these horrible burlesques and travesties 
of royalty were written with malice and settled intent to bring mon- 
archy into contempt and justify the aristocracy in revolution. 

V^ VIII. Another Reason. 

But it must be further remembered that while Bacon lived the 
Shakespeare Plays were not esteemed as they are now. Then they 
were simply successful dramas; they drew great audiences; they 
filled the pockets of manager and actors. Leonard Digges, in the 
verses prefixed to the edition of 1640, says that when Jonson's 
" Fox and Subtle Alchymist " 

Have scarce defrayed the sea-coal fire 
And door-keepers: when, let but Falstaff come, 
Hal, Poins, the rest — you scarce shall have room, 
All is so pestered: let but Beatrice 
And Benedick be seen, lo ! in a trice 
The cock-pit, galleries, boxes, all are full. 
To hear Malvolio, that cross-gartered gull. 

There was no man in that age, except the author of them, who 
rated the Shakespeare Plays at their true value. They were admired 
for "the facetious grace of the writing," but the world had not yet 
advanced far enough in culture and civilization to recognize them 
as the great store-houses of the world's thought. Hence there was 
not then the same incentive to acknowledge them that there would 
be to-day. 

\^ IX. Still Another Reason. 

If Francis Bacon had died full of years and honors, I can con- 
ceive how, from the, height of preeminent success, he might have 
fronted the prejudices of the age, and acknowledged these children 
of his brain. 



258 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

But the last years of his life were years of dishonor. He had 
been cast down from the place of Lord Chancellor for bribery, for 
selling justice for money. He had been sentenced to prison; he 
held his liberty by the King's grace. He was denied access to the 
court. He was a ruined man, " a very subject of pity," as he says 
himself. 

For a man thus living under a cloud to have said, " In my 
youth I wrote plays for the stage; I wrote them for money; I used 
Shakspere as a mask; I divided with him the money taken in at 
the gate of the play-houses from the scum and refuse of London," 
would only have invited upon his head greater ignominy and dis- 
grace. j^He had a wife; he had relatives, a proud and aristocratic 
breed. He sought to be the Aristotle of a new philosophy. Such 
an avowal would have smirched the Novum Organum and the Ad- 
vancement of Learning; it would have blotted and blurred the bright 
and dancing light of that torch which he had kindled for posterity. 
He would have had to explain his, no doubt countless, denials 
made years before, that he had had anything to do with the Plays. 

And why should he acknowledge them? He left his fame and 
good name to his "own countrymen after some time be past ;" he 
believed the cipher, which he had so laboriously inserted in the 
Plays, would be found out. He would obtain all the glory for his 
name in that distant future when he would not hear the re- 
proaches of caste; when, as pure spirit, he might look down from 
space, and see the winged-goodness which he had created, passing, 
on pinions of persistent purpose, through all the world, from gener- 
ation to generation. In that age, when his body was dust; when 
cousins and kin were ashes; when Shakspere had moldered into 
nothingness, beneath the protection of his own barbarous curse; 
when not a trace could be found of the bones of Elizabeth or 
James, or even of the stones of the Curtain or the Blackfriars: 
then, in a new world, a brighter world, a greater world, a better 
world, — to which his own age would be but as a faint and per- 
turbed remembrance, — he w^ould be married anew to his immortal 
works. He would live again, triumphant, over Burleigh and Cecil, 
over Coke and Buckingham; over parasites and courtiers, over 
tricksters and panderers: — the magnificent victory of genius over 
povv'er; of mind over time. And so living, he would live forever. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

COA'A'OBOA'A TING CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Lapped in proof, 
Confronted him with self-comparisons. 

Macbetli, i, 2. 

WE sometimes call, in law, an instrument between two parties 
an indenture. Why ? Because it was once the custom to 
write a deed or contract in duplicate, on a long sheet of paper or 
parchment, and then cut them apart upon an irregular or indented 
line. If, thereafter, any dispute arose as to whether one was the 
equivalent of the other, the edges, where they were divided, were 
put together to see if they precisely matched. If they did not, it 
followed that some fraud had somewhere been practiced. 

Truth, in like manner, is serrated, and its indentations fit into 
all other truth. If two alleged truths do not thus dovetail into 
each other, along the line where they approximate, then one of 
them is not the truth, but an error or a fraud. 

Let us see, therefore, if, upon a multitude of minor points, the 
allegation that ^Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare Plavs fits its 
indentations — its teeth — precisely into what we know of Bacon 
and Shakspere. 

In treating these questions, I shall necessarily have to be as 
brief as possible. 

I. The Question of Time. 

Does the biography of Bacon accord with tlie chronolog)'- of 
the Plays? 

^^ Bacon was born in York House, or Palace, on the Strand, Janu- 
ary 2 2, 1 56 1. William Shakspere was born at Stratford-on-Avon, 
April 23, 1564. Bacon died in the spring of 1626. Shakspere in the 
spring of 1616. The lives of the two men were therefore parallel; but 
Bacon was three years the elder, and survived Shakspere ten years. 

Bacon's mental activity began at an early age. He was study- 
ing the nature of echoes at a time when other children are playing. 

259 



2 6o FRAA'CIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

At twelve he outstripped .his home tutors and was sent to join his 
brother Anthony, two years his senior, at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge. At eighteen Hilliard paints his portrait and inscribes 
upon it, "if one could but paint his mind." We will hereafter see 
reasons to believe that there is extant a whole body of compositions 
written before he was twenty-one years of age. At about twenty 
he summarizes the political condition of Europe with the hand of 
a statesman. 

II. Plays before Shakspere Comes to London, 

The Plays antedate the time of the coming of Shakspere to 
London, which it is generally agreed was in 1587. 

That high authority, Richard Simpson, in his School of Shake- 
speare^ in his article, "The Early Authorship of Shakespeare'" and 
in Notes and Queries^ shows that the Shakespeare Plays commenced 
to appear in i^Ss ■' That is to say, while Shakspere was still living in 
Stratford — in the year the twins were born ! We are therefore to 
believe that in that " bookless neighborhood " the butcher's ap- 
prentice was, between his whippings, writing plays for the stage I 
Here are miracles indeed. 

In 1585 Robert Greene both registered and published his Plane- 
tomachia, and in this work he denounces "some avaricious player, 
. . . who, not content with his own province [of acting], should 
dare to intrude into the field of authorship, which ought to belong 
solely to the professed scholars" — like Greene himself. And from 
that time forward Greene continued to gibe at this same some- 
body, who was writing plays for the stage. He speaks of "gentle- 
men poets" in 1588, who set "the end of scholarism in an English 
blank verse; ... it is the humor of a novice that tickles them with 
self-love." 

Thomas Nash says, in an epistle prefixed to Greene's Arcadia^ 

published, according to Mr. Dyce, in 1587: 

It is a common practice, now-a-days, amongst a sort of shifting companions, 
that run through every art and thrive at none, to leave the trade of noveriut [lawyer], 
whereto they ruere horn, and busy themselves with the endeavors of art, that could 
scarcely Latinize their neck-verse, if they should have need. Yet English Seneca, 
read by candle-light, yields many good sentences, as "blood is a beggar," and 
so forth; and if you entreat him fair, in a frosty morning, he will aflford you whole 
Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches. 

' Vol. ii, p. 342. "^ North Briiish Reviccf, vol. Hi. ■' 4th scries, vol. viii. 



CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 261 

Here it appears that in 1587, the very year when Shakspere 
■came to London, and while he was probably holding horses at the 
front door of the theater, the play of Hamlet, Shakespeare's own 
play of Hamlet, was being acted; and was believed by other play- 
wrights to, have been composed by some lawyer, who was born a 
lawyer. 

And did not Nash's words, "if you entreat him fair of a frosty 
morning," allude to that earl}^ morning scene " of a frosty morning," 
where Hamlet meets the Ghost, for the first time, on the platform 
of the castle: 

Ifaiiilit. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. 
Horatio. It is a nipping and an eager air. 

But this lawyer, who was born a lawyer, to whom allusion is 
made by Nash, so far from being a mere-horse-holder, was some- 
thing of a scholar, for Nash continues: 

But . . . what's that will last always ? Seneca let blood line by line and 
page by page, at length must die to our stage, which makes his [Seneca's] fam- 
ished followers . . . leap into a new occupation and translate tvo-penny pamphlets 
from the Italian without any knowledge even of its articles.' 



H' 



I We have seen that several of the so-called Shakespeare comedies 

were founded on untranslated Italian novels. Will the men who 



argue that Shakspere stood at the door of the play-house and held 
horses, and at the same time wrote the magnificent and scholarly 
periods of Hamlet, go farther and ask us to believe that the 
butcher's apprentice, the deer-stealer, the beer-guzzler, "oft- 
whipped and imprisoned," had, in the filthy, bookless village of 
Stratford, acquired even an imperfect knowledge of the Italian ? 
But Nash goes farther. He says: v 

Sundry other siveet gentlemen I do know, that we [sic] have vaunted their pens 
in private-devices and tricked rip a company of taffaty fools with their feathers, whose 
beauty, if our poets had not pecked, with the supply of their perriwigs, they might 
have anticked it until this time, up and down the country with The King of 
Fairies and dined every day at the pease-poridge ordinary with Delfrigius. 

What does all this mean ? Why, that there were poets who 
were not actors, "sweet gentlemen'' (and that word meant a good 
deal in 1587), who had written "private devices," as we know 
Bacon to have written "masks" for private entertainments; and 
these gentlemen were rich enough to have furnished out a company 

^ School 0/ Shak., vol. ii, p. 358. 



262 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

of actors with feathers and periwigs, to take part in these private- 
theatricals; and if the " gentlemen " had not pecked (objected?) 
the players would have anticked it, that is, played in this finery, all 
over the country. 

Hamlet says to Horatio, after he has written the play and had 
it acted and thereby "touched the conscience of the King: " 

Would not this, sir, and a f crest of yt'^Z/^t';;? (if the rest of my fortunes turn 
Turk with me), with two provincial roses on my ragged shoes, get me a fellowship 
in a cry of players? 

And three years after Nash wrote the above, Robert Greene 
refers to Shakspere as the only " Shake-scene in the country," and as 
"an upstart crow beautified with owr feathers." 

ni. A Pretended Plav-Writer who Cannot Write 

English. 

Simpson believes that Fair Etn was written by Shakspere in 

1587. 

In 1587 Greene wrote his Farewell to Folly, published in 1591, in 
which he criticises the play of Fair Em and positively states that it 
was written by some gentleman of position, who put it forth in the 
name of a play-actor who was almost wholly uneducated. He 
says: 

Others will flout and over-read every line with a frump, and say 'tis scurvy, 
when they themselves are such scabbed lads that they are like to die of the /a si on/ ^ 
but if they come to write or publish anything in print, it is either distilled out of 
ballads, or borrowed of theological poets, which, for ^/u-ir cal/ing and gravity 
being loth to have any profane pamphlets pass tinder their hand, get some other Batil- 
lus to set his name to their verses. Thus is the ass made proud by this underhand 
brokery. And he that eannot ivrite tnie English loithout the help of clerks of parish 
churches, will needs make himself the father of interludes. O, 'tis a jolly matter 
when a man hath a familiar style, and can endite a whole year and not be behold- 
ing to art ! But to bring Scripture to prove anything he says, and kill it dead with 
the text in a trifling subject of love, I tell you is no small piece of cunning. As, 
for example, two lovers on the stage arguing one another of unkindness, his mis- 
tress runs over him with this canonical sentence, "A man's conscience is a thou- 
sand witnesses;" and her knight again excuseth himself with that saying of the 
apostle, " Love covereth a multitude of sins."' 

The two lines here quoted are from Fair Em: 

Thy conscience is a thousand witnesses.'' 

Yet love, that covers multitude of sins.-* 

* A disease of horses, like glanders. ^ Sc. xvii, 1. 1308. 

^ School of Skate., chap, xi, p. 377. ■* Ibid., 1. 1271. 



CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 2O; 

What does this prove? That it was the belief of Greene, who 
was himself a playwright, that Fair Em was not written by the 
man in whose name it was put forth, but by some one of " calling 
and gravity," who had made use of another as a mask. And that 
this latter person was an ignorant man, who could not write true 
English without the help of the clerks of parish churches. But 
Simpson and many others ar^ satisfied that Fair Em was written 
by the same mind which produced the Shakespeare Plays ! But 
as the Farewell to Folly was written in 1587, and it is generally con- 
ceded that Shakspere did not commence to write until 1592, five 
years afterward, and as Shakspere was in 1587 hanging about the 
play-house either as a horse-holder or a "servitor," these words 
could not apply to him. We will see reason hereafter to conclude 
that they applied to Marlowe. But if they did apply to Shakspere, 
then we have the significant fact, as Simpson says. 

That Greene here pretends that Shakespeare could not have written the play 
himself; it was written by some theological poet, and fathered by him. 

And Simpson, be it remembered, is no Baconian. It has been 
urged, as a strong point in favor of William Shakspere's author- 
ship of the Plays, that his right to them was never questioned 
during his lifetime. If he wrote plays in 1587, then Greene did 
question the reality of his authorship, and boldly charged that he 
was an ignorant man, and the cover for some one else. If he did 
not write plays before 1592, — and a series of plays appeared between 
1585 and 1592 which the highest critics contend were produced by 
the same mind which created the Shakespeare Plays, — then the 
whole series could not have been produced by the man of Stratford- 
on-Avon; and if the first of the series of identical works was not 
written by him, the last of the series could not have been. The advo- 
cates of Shakspere can take either horn of the dilemma they please. 

Simpson thus sums up Greene's conclusions about Shakspere: 

That he appropriated and refurbished other men's plays; that he was a lack- 
latin, who had no acquaintance with any foreign language, except, perhapL, 
French, and lived from the translator's trencher, and such like. Throughout we 
see Greenes determination not to recognize Shakspere as a man capable of doing any- 
thing by himself. At first, Greene simply fathers some composition of his upon 
"two gentlemen poets," because he, in Greene's opinion, was incapable of loriting 
anything. Then as to Fair Em, it is either distilled out of ballads, or it is written 
by some theological poet, who is ashamed to set his own name to it. It could not 
have been written by one who cannot write English without the aid of a parish 



1^ 



264 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

clerk. Then, at last, Greene owns that his rival might have written a speech or 
two, might have interpreted for the puppets, have indited a moral, or might be 
-ven capable of penning The Windmill — The Miller's Daughter — without help, 
for so I interpret the words before quoted, "reputed able at my proper cost to 
build a windmill," but Greene %i)ill ?iot oivtt that the man is capable 0/ having really 
done that 'which /•asses /or his. 

And it c^eems to me the words, " reputed able at my proper cost 
to build a windmill," do not refer tio the play, but to the wealth of 
the player. 

IV. He Writes for Other Companies besides Shakspere's. 

We turn now to another curious fact, quite incompatible with 
the theory that the man of Stratford wrote the Plays. 

What do we know of him ? That when he fled to London he 
acted at first, as tradition tells us, as a horse-holder, and was then 
admitted to the play-house as a servant. And the tradition of his 
being a horse-holder is curiously confirmed by the fact that when 
Greene alludes to him as ''the only Shake-scene in the country," he 
advises his fellow-playwrights to prepare no more dramas for the 
actors, because of the predominance of that "Johannes-factotum," 
Shake-scene, and adds: 

Seek you better masters; for it is a pity men of such rare wits should be sub- 
ject to the pleasure of such rude grooms. 

Certainly the man who had been recently taking charge of 
horses might very properly be referred to as a groom. 

But here we stumble upon another difficulty. Not only did 
plays which are now attributed to Shakspere make their appearance 
on the London stage while he was still living in Stratford, whipped 
and persecuted by Sir Thomas Lucy, and subsequently, while 
he was acting as groom for the visitors to the play-house, but at this 
very time, we are told, he not only supplied his own theater with 
plays, but, with extraordinary fecundity, he furnished plays to every 
company of actors in London ! Tradition tells us that during his early 
years in the great city he was "received into the play-house as a 
serviture." Is it possible that while so employed — a servant, a 
menial, a call-boy — in one company, he could furnish plays to 
other and rival companies ? Would his profits not have lifted 
him above the necessity of acting as groom or call-boy ? Simpson 
says: 



CORROBORA TINC CIRCUMSTANCES. 



^65 



Other prominent companies were those of the Earl of Sussex (1589), the Earl 
of Worcester (1590), and the Earl of Pembroke (1592). For all these Shakspere can 
he shown to have written during the first part of his career. According to the well- 
known epistle annexed to Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, Shakspere, by 1592, had 
become so absolute a fohannes factotum, for the actors of the Adiy generally, that 
the man who considered himself the chief of the scholastic school of dramatists 
not only determined for his own part to abandon play-writing, but urged his com- 
panions to do the same. . . . It is clear that befo)-e IS92 Shakspere must have 
been prodigiously active, and that plays wholly or partly from his pen must have 
been in the possession of many of the actors and companies. For the fruits of 
this activity -we are not to look in his recognized tuorks. Those, with few exceptions, 
are the plays he -wrote for the Lord Chamberlain^ s men. . . . There are two kinds of 
Shaksperean remains which may be recorded, or rather assigned, to their real 
original author, by the critic and historian. First, the dramas prior to 1592, 
which are not included in his works; and secondly, the dramas over the proauction 
of which he presided, or with which he was connected as editor, reviser or 
adviser.' 

And again Simpson says: 

The recognized v.'orks of Shakspere contain scarcely any plays but those 
which he produced for the Lord Chamberlain's or King's company of actors. But 
in 1592 Greene tells us he had almost a monopoly of dramatic production, and had 
made himself necessary, not to one co??ipany, but to the players in general. It may 
be proved that he wrote for the Lord Strange's men, and for those of the Earl of 
Pembroke and the Earl of Sussex. -' 

But while this distinguished scholar tells us that Shakspere was 
"prodigiously active prior to 1592," and supplied all the different 
companies with plays, we turn U) the other commentators and 
biographers, and they unite in assuring us that Shakspere did not 
appear as an author until 1592 !/ Halliwell-Phillipps fixes the exact 
date as March 3d, 1592, when a new drama was brought out b}' 
Lord Strange's servants, to-wit, //r//;;v TV., " in all probability his 
earliest complete dramatic work." 

Here, then, is our dilemma: 

1. It is proved that Shakespeare did not begin to write until 

1592- 

2. It is proved that there is a whole body of compositions 
written by the mind which we call Shakespeare, and which were 
acted on the stage before 1592. 

3. It is proved that Shakspere was a servant in or about one 
play-house. 

4. It is proved that while so engaged he furnished plays to rival 
play-houses. 

> School 0/ Shak., vol. i, p. 20— Introduction. - Ibid., vol. i, p. 8. 



/ 



266 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Is all this conceivable ? Would the proprietor of one theater per- 
mit his servant to give to other theaters the means of drawing the 
crowd from his own doors and the shillings from his own pocket ? 

V. The Plays Cease to Appear Long before Shakspere's 

Death. 

y The poet Dryden stated, in 1680, that Othello was Shakespeare's 
last play. 

Dryden was born only fifteen years after Shakspere's death. 
He was himself a play-writer; a frequenter of play-houses; the 
associate of actors; he wrote the statement quoted only sixty- 
four years after Shakspere died; he doubtless spoke the tradition 
common among the actors of London. 

Now, it is well known that Othello was in existence in 1605, 
eleven years before Shakspere's death. Malone says, " We knozv it 
was acted in 1604." 

Knight says: 

Mr. Peter Cunningham confirms this, by having found an entry in the Revels 
at Court of a performance of Othello in 1604.' 

We can conceive that it may have been the last of the great 
Shakespearean tragedies, The Te/nJ>est he'\ng the last of the comedies. 

Certain it is, however, that the Plays ceased to appear about 
the time Bacon rose to high and lucrative employment in the state. 
and several years before the death of their putative author. ] 

All the Plays seem to have originated in that period of time 
during which Bacon was poor and unemployed. Take even those 
which are conceded to belong to Shakespeare's "later period." 

Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

Alacbeth, in some form, had been introduced on the English stage as early as 
1600, for Kempe, the actor, in his "Nine Daies' Wonder performed in a Daunce 
from London to Norwich," alludes to a play of Macdoel, or Macdoheth, or Mae- 
someivhat, for I am sure a Alac it was, though I never had the maw to see it.' 

Hamlet, we have seen, first appeared, probably in some imperfect 
form, in 1585. Lear was acted before King James at Whitehall in 
the year 1606. 

Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

The four years and a half that intervened between the performance of The 
Tempest in 1611, and the author's death, could not have been one of his periods of 

• Knight, introd. notice Othello. ' Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines Life 0/ Shale., p. 291. 



\ 



CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTAXCES. 267 

great literary activity. So manj^ of his plays are known to have been in existence 
at the former date, it follows that there are only six which could by any possi- 
bility have been written after that time; and it is not likely that the whole of 
those belong to so late an era. These facts lead irresistiblv to the conclusion 
that the poat abandoned literary occupation a considerable period before his 
decease.' 

Knight says: 

But when the days of pleasure arrived, is it reasonable to believe that the 
greatest of intellects would suddenly sink to the condition of an every -day man — 
cherishing no high plans for the future, looking back with no desire to equal and 
excel the work of the past? At the period of life when Chaucer began to write the 
Canterbury Tales, Shakspere, according to his biographers, was suddenly and 
utterly to cease to write. We cannot believe it. Is there a parallel case in the 
career of any great artist who had won for himself competence and fame?'^ 

Here, therefore, is another inexplicable fact:j\Not only did 
Shakspere, as we are told, write plays for the London stage 
before he went to London; but after he had returned to Stratford, 
with ample leisure and the incentive to make money, the man who 
sued his neighbor for a few shillings, for malt sold, and who was, 
we are asked to believe, the most fecund of human intelligences, 
remained idly in his native village, writing nothing, doing nothing. 
Was there ever heard, before or since, of such a vast and laborious 
and creative mind, retiring thus into itself, into nothingness, — and 
locking the door and throwing away the key, — and vegetating, for 
from five to ten years, amid muck-heaps and filthy ditches? Would 
the author of Larr and Hamlet — the profound, the scholarly phil- 
osopher — be capable of such mental suicide; such death in life; 
such absorption of brain in flesh; such crawling into the innermost 
recesses of self-oblivion ? Five or ten years of nothingness ! Not a 
play; not a letter; not a syllable; nothing but three ignorant-look- 
ing signatures to a will, which appears to liave been drawn by a 
lawyer who thought the testator could not write his name. 

VI. The Sonnets. \^ 

And in the so-called *' Shakespeare Sonnets " we find a whole 
congeries of mysteries. The critical world has racked all its brains 
to determine who W. H. was — "the onlie begetter of these insuing 
sonnets;" and how any other man could "beget" them if they 
were Shakespeare's. Some one speaks of that collection of sonnets, 

» Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines Life of Shak., p. 155. " Knight's Shak. Biography, p. 525. 



268 J^J^AXCJS BACOX THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

published in 1609, as "one of the most singular volumes ever 
issued from the press." Let us point at a few of its singu- 
larities: 

Sonnet Ixxvi says: 

Why is my verse so barren of new pride ? 

So far from variation or quick change ? 
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside 

To new-found methods and to compounds strange ? 
Why write I still all one, ever the same, 

And keep invention in a noted iveed, 
Tliat even' word doth almost tell my name, 

Sho7ving their birth and where they did proceed? I 

What is the meaning of this ? Clearly that the writer was 
hidden in a weed, a disguise; and we have already seen that Bacon 
employed the word weed to signify a disguise. But it is more than 
a disguise — it is a «^/^^ disguise. Surely the name S/iakespeare -was 
noted enough. And the writer, covered by this disguise, fears that 
every word he writes doth betray him; — doth "almost tell his 
name," their birth and where they came from. This is all very 
remarkable if Shakspere 7oas Shakespeare. Then there was no 
weed, no disguise and no danger of the secret authorship being 
revealed. 

But we find Francis Bacon, as I have shown, also referring to a 
weed. 

The state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine 
-eyes. I have hated alt cruelty and hardness of heart. I have, though in a despised 
weed, procured the good of all men. 

Marvelous, indeed, is it to find Shakespeare's sonnets referring 
to "a noted 7cieed,'" and Bacon referring to "a despised 7veed"\ — 
that is to say, Shakespeare admits that the writer has kept inven- 
tion in a disguise; and Bacon claims that he himself, under a dis- 
guise, has procured the good of all men; and that this disguise was 
a despised one, as the name of a play-actor like Shakspere would 
necessarily be. 

But there is another incompatibility in these sonnets with 
the belief that William Shakspere wrote them. In Sonnet ex 
we read: 

Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there. 

And made myself a motley to the view, 
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear. 



CORROBOKA TING CIRCUMSTAXCES. 269- 

And in the next sonnet we have: 

Oh, for my sake do you with fortune chide. 

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 
That did not better for my life provide 

Than public means, which public manners breeds. 
Thence comes it that i/iy uaiiie rcct'i^'cs a brand, 

And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 

These lines have been interpreted to " refer to the bitter feeling 
of personal degradation allowed by Shakespeare to result from his 
connection with the stage." 

But Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

Is it conceivable that a man who encouraged a sentiment of this nature, one 
which must have been accompanied with a distaste and contempt for his profession, 
would have remained an actor years and years after any real necessity for such a 
course had expired ? By the spring of 1602 at the latest, if not previously, he had 
acquired a secure and definite competence, independently of his emoluments as a 
dramatist, and yet eight years afterward, in 1610, he is discovered playing in com- 
pany with Burbadge and Heminge at the Blackfriars Theater.' . 

'^ 

It is impossible that so transcendent a genius — a statesman, a 

historian, a lawyer, a philosopher, a linguist, a courtier, a natural 
aristocrat; holding the " many-headed mob " and " the base mechan- 
ical fellows" in absolute contempt; with wealth enough to free 
him from the pinch of poverty — should have remained, almost 
to the very last, a "vassal actor," liable to be pelted with decayed 
vegetables, or tossed in a blanket, and ranked in legal estimation 
with vagabonds and prostitutes. It is impossible that he should 
have continued for so many years to have acted subordinate parts 
of ghosts and old men, in unroofed enclosures, amid the foul 
exhalations of a mob, which could only be covered by the burning 
of juniper branches. Surely such a man, in such an age of unrest, 
when humble but ambitious adventurers rose to high places, would 
have carved out for himself some nobler position in life; or would, 
at least, have left behind him some evidence that he tried to do so. 
Neither can we conceive how one who commenced life as a 
peasant, and worked at the trade of a butcher, and who had fled 
to London to escape public whipping and imprisonment, could 
feel that his name " received a brand " by associating with Bur- 
badge and Nathaniel Field and the other actors. Was it not, in^ 

' Outlines Life of Shak., p. no. 



270 FJiANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE FLAYS. 

every sense, an elevation for him ? And if he felt ashamed of his 
connection with the stage, why did he, in his last act on earth, the 
drawing of his will, refer to his "fellows," Heminge and Condell, 
and leave them presents of rings ? 

But all this feeling of humiliation here pictured would be 
most natural to Francis Bacon. The guilty goddess of his 
harmful deeds had, indeed, not provided him the necessaries 
of life, and he had been forced to have recourse to " public 
means," to-wit, play-writing; and thereby his name had been 
"branded," and his nature had been degraded to the level of 
the actors. 

We turn now to another point. 

VII. The Early Marks of Age. 

There are many evidences that the person who wrote the son- 
nets began to show the marks of age at an early period. The 
138th sonnet was published in 1599, in The Passionate Pilgrim, 
when William Shakspere was thirty-five years of age; and yet in it 
the writer speaks of himself as old: 

Although .she knows my days are past the best . . . 

And wherefore say not I, that I am old ? 
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, 

And age in love loves not to have years told. 

And again he says in the 22d sonnet: 

My glass shall not persuade me I am old, 
So long as youth and thou are of one date. 

Again, in the 62d sonnet, he speaks of himself as 

Bated and chopped with tanned antiquity. 
And in the 73d sonnet he says: 

That time of year thou may'st in me behold 
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 
Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 

Now, all this would be unusual language for a man of thirty- 
five to apply to himself; but it agrees well with what we know of 
Francis Bacon in this respect. 

John Campbell says: 

The marks of age were prematurely impressed upon him. 



CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTAXCES. 271 

He writes to his uncle Burleigh in 1591: 

I am now somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in 
the hour-glass.' 

And again he says, about the same time: 

I would be sorry she [the Queen] should estrange in my last years, for so I 
account them reckoning by health, not by age.'- 

VIII. The Wri'ier's Liff. Threatened. 

Then there is another passage in the sonnets which does not, so 
far as we know, fit into the career of tlie wealthy burgher of Strat- 
ford, but accords admirably with an incident in the life of Bacon. 
In the 74th sonnet we read: 

But be contented: when that fell arrest 

Without all bail shall carry me away, 
My life hath in this line some interest, 

Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. . . . 
The earth can have but earth, which is his due; , 
/ My spirit is thine, the better part of me: 

So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, 

The prey of worms, my body being dea '»; 
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife. 

Too base of thee to be remembered. 

And again in the 90th sonnet we read: 

Then hate me if thou wilt, if ever now; 

N'o'ui 7i<hile the 7vor!d is bent my deeds to cross. 
Join -coith the spite of fortune, make me bow 
And do not drop in for an after-loss: 

Ah ! do not, when my heart hath scaped this sorrow, 
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe. 

It seems to me the explanation of these lines is to be found in 
the fact that, after the downfall of Essex, Bacon was bitterly hated 
and denounced by the adherents of the Earl, and his life was even 
in danger from their rage. He writes to Queen Elizabeth in 1599: 

My life has been threatened and my name libeled, which I count an honor.' 

Again he says to Cecil: 

As for any violence to be offered to me, wherewith my friends tell me I am 
threatened, I thank God I have the privy coat of a good conscience. 

He also wrote to Lord Howard: 

For my part I have deserved better than to have my name objected to envy or 
my life to a ruffian's violence. 

' Letter to Burleigh. ' Letter to Sir Robert Cecil. 

' Letter to Queen Elizabeth, 1599 — Life ami Works, vol. ii, p. 160. 



FHAXC/S BACOX THE ALTHOK OJ- THE PLAYS. 

- 1 - 

IX. A Period of Gloom. 

We find, too, in the sonnets, reference to a period of gloom in 
the life of the writer that is not to be explained by anything we 
know of in the history of William Shakspere. He had all the world 
could give him; he had wealth, the finest house in Stratford, lands, 
tithes, and malt to sell: to say nothing of that bogus coat-of-arms 
which assured him gentility. But the writer of the sonnets (see 
sonnet xxxvii) speaks of himself as unfortunate, as " made lame by 
fortune's dearest spite," as "lame, poor and despised." He is 
overwhelmed with some great shame: 

When in disgrace untk fortune and men's eyes. 

I all alone beweep mv outcast state, 
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries. 
And look upon myself and curse my fate. ' 

And the writer had experienced some great disappointments 

He says: 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen 

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, 
K-issing with golden face the meadows green. 

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; 
Anon permit the basest cloud to ride. 

With ugly rack on his celestial face. 
And from the forlorn world his visage hide. 

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace; 
Even so my sun one early mom did shine. 

With all triumphant sf lender en my brow; 
But out ! alack ! he was but one hour mine. 

The region cloud hath masked him from me nov.' 

And the writer is utterly cast down with his disappointment 
He cries out in sonnet Ixvi: 

Tired of all these, for restful death I cry. 

As to behold desert a beggar bom. 
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity. 

And p-urest faith unhappily forsworn. 
And gilded honor shamefully misplaced. 

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted. 
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced. 

And strength by limping sicay disabled. 
And art made tongue-tied by authority. 

And foUy (doctor-like) controlling skill. 
And simple truth miscalled simplicity. 

And captive Good attending captain HI — 

Tired with all these, from these I would be gone. 
Save thai to die I leave my love alone. 

» Smmei ixix. ' Sifnnei xxxiii. 



CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 273 

All these words seem to me to fit into Bacon's case. He was in 
disgrace with fortune and men's eyes. He writes to Essex in 
1594: 

And I must confess this very delay has gone so near me as it hath almost 
overthrown my health. ... I cannot but conclude that no man ever read a more 
exquisite disgrace.' 

He proposed to travel abroad; he hopes her Majesty will not 
force him 

To pine here with melancholy, for though mine heart be good, yet mine eyes 
will be sore. ... I am not an impudent man that would face out a disgrace.'^ 

The bright morning sun of hope had ceased to shine upon his 
brow. He "lacked advancement," like Hamlet; he had been over- 
ridden by the Queen. He despaired. He writes: "I care not 
whether God or her Majesty call me." In the sonnet he says: 

Tired of all these, for restful death I cry. 
And the grounds of his lamentation are those a courtier might 
entertain, but scarcely a play-actor. He beholds " desert " a beggar. 
Surely this was not Shakspere's case. He sees nothingness elevated 
to power; strength swayed by limping weakness; himself with all 
his greatness overruled by the cripple Cecil. He sees the state 
and religion tying the tongue of art and shutting the mouth of free 
thought. He sees evil triumphant in the world; " captive Good 
attending captain 111." And may not the ''maiden virtue rudely 
strumpeted " be a reflection on her of whom so many scandals 
were whispered; who, it v/as said, had kept Leicester's bed- 
chamber next to her own; who had for so many years suppressed 
Bacon, and for whom, on her death, "the honey-tongued Melicert" 
dropped not one pitying tear? 



^ 



X. An Incomprehensible Fact, 



Francis Bacon was greedy for knowledge. He ranged the 
wTiole amphitheater of human learning. From Greece, from Rome,, 
from Italy, from France, from Spain, from the early English 
writers, he gathered facts and thoughts. He had his Fromits, his 
commonplace-book, so to speak, of "formularies and elegancies''' of 
speech. His acknowledged writings teem with quotations from the 
poets. And yet not once does he refer to William Shakspere or 

• Letter to Esse.x, March 30, 1594. ^Letter to Essex. 



2 74 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

the Shakespeare writings I The man of Stratford acted in one of 
the Plays which go by his name, and on the same night, in the 
same place, was presented a " mask " written by Bacon. We 
thus have the two men under the same roof, at the same time, 
engaged in the same kind of work. Shakespeare, the play-writer, 
and Bacon, the mask-writer, thus rub elbows; but neither seems 
to have known the other. 
Landor says: 

Bacon little knew or suspected that there was then existing (the only one that 
ever did exist) his superior in intellectual power. 

Bacon was ravaging all time and searching the face of the 
whole earth for gems of thought and expression, and here in these 
Plays was a veritable Golconda of jewels, under his very nose, and 
he seems not to have known it. 

XI. Bacon's Love of Plays. 

But it may be said that Shakspere moved in a lower sphere 
of thought, beneath the notice of the great philosopher. This 
cannot be true; for we have seen that Bacon certainly wrote 
"masks," which were a kind of smaller plays, and that he united 
with seven other young lawyers of Gray's Inn to prepare a veritable 
stage-play. The Misfortunes of Arthur ; but, more than that, he was 
very fond of theatricals. 

Mrs. Pott says, speaking of the year 1594: 

The Calvinistic strictness of Lady Anne Bacon's principles receive a severe 
shock from the repeated and open proofs which Francis gives of his taste for stage 
performances. Anthony, about this time, leaves his brother and goes to live in 
Bishopsgate Street, near "Bull" Inn, where ten or twelve of the "Shakespeare" 
Plays were acted. Lady Anne "trusts that they will not mum, nor mask, nor 
sinfully revel at Gray's Inn." 

Bacon's acknowledged writings overflow with expressions show- 
ing how much his thoughts ran on play-houses and stage-plays. I 
quote a few expressions, at random, to prove this: 

Therefore vi^e see that there be certain "pantomimi" that will represent the 
voices of players of interludes so to life, as if you see them not you would think 
they were those players themselves.' 

Alluding to "the prompter," or "book-holder," as he was then 
railed. Bacon says of himself: 

'^ Natural History^%QL^o, 



CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 275 

Knowing myself to be fitter to hold a book than to play a part.' 

Speaking of Essex' successes, he says: 

Neither do I judge the whole play by the first act.* 

He writes Lord Burleigh that 

There are a dozen young gentlemen of Gray's Inn, that . . . will be ready to 
furnish a mask, wishing it were in their power to perform it according to their minds. 

In the Dc Aitg/nc/itis he speaks of '■' the play-books of philosophical 
systetns" and "the play-books of \\\\'~> philosophical tlieatcr."^ 

He calls the world of art "a universe or theater of things."^ 
Speaking of the priest Simonds instructing Sininell to per- 
sonate Lord Edward Plantagenet, Bacon says: 

This priest, being utterly unacquainted with the true person, should think it pos- 
sible to instruct his player either in gesture or fashions. . . . None could hold the 
book so well to prompt and instruct this stage play as he could. . . . He thought 
good, after the manner of scejtes in stage plays and masks, to show it afar off.* 

Referring to the degradation of the royal pretender, Lambert 

Simnell, to a position in the kitchen of the King, Bacon says: 

So that in a kind of " matticina" of human force, he turned a broach who had 
worn a crown; whereas fortune does not commonly bring in a comedy or farce 
after a tragedy.'" 

Speaking of Warbeck's conspiracy, Bacon says: 

It was one of the longest plays of that kind that hath been in memory.' 

And here I group together several similar expressions: 

Therefore, now, lil;e the end of a play, a great many came upon the stage at once." 

He [Perkin Warbeck] had contrived with himself a c'ast and tragical plot.^ 

I have given the rule where a man cannot fitly play his oicn part, if he have 
not a friend he may i/iiit the stage 



, 10 



But men must know that in this theater of man's life, it is reserved only for 
God and the angels to be lookers-on." 

As if they would make you like a king in a play, who, when one would think 
he standeth in great majesty and felicity, is troubled to say his part. ^'^ 

With which speech he put the army into an infinite fury and uproar, whereas 
truth was he had no brother; neither was there any such matter, but he played it 
merely as if he had been upon the stage. ^^ 

Those friends whom I accounted no stage friends, but private friends.''' 

' Letter to Sir Thomas Bodley. » Ibid. 

^ Letter to Essex, Oct. 4, 1596. » Ibid. 

' Ixi, Ixii. 10 Essay Of Friendship. 

* History of Henry VI/. " .Advancement 0/ Learnings, book ii. 

' Ibid. >9 Cesiu Crayorum — Li_/e and Works, vol. i, p. 339. 

* Ibid. i> Advancement of Learning, book ii. 
' Ibid. i« Letter to Tobie Matthew. 



276 FKAXCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

All that would be but 3. play upon the stage, if justice went not on in the light 
course.' 

Zeno and Socrates . . . placed felicity in \irtue; . . . the Cyrenaics and Epi- 
curians placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in some coniedics op' 
errors, wherein the mistress and maid change habits) to be but as a servant. - 

We regard all the systems of philosophy hitherto received or imagined as so' 
many plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and theatrical ivorlds? 

The plot of this our theater resembles those of the poetical, where the plots 
which are invented for the .stage are more consistent, elegant and pleasurable than 
those taken from real history. •* 

I might continue these examples indefinitely, for Bacon's whole 
writings bubble and sparkle with coinparisons drawn from plays, 
play-houses and actors; and yet, marvelous to relate, he never 
notices the existence of the greatest dramatic writings the world 
had ever known, which he must have witnessed on the stage a 
thousand times. He takes Ben Jonson into his house as an amanu- 
ensis, but the mightiest mind of all time, if Shakspere was Shake- 
speare, he never notices, even when he is uttering thoughts and 
preaching a philosophy identical with his own ! How can all this, 
be explained ? 

Mrs. Pott calls attention to the following: 

Beaumont and Fletcher dedicated to Bacon the mask which was designed to- 
celebrate the marriage of the Count Palatine with the Princess Elizabeth, February 
14, 1612-13. The dedication of this mask begins with an acknowledgment that 
Bacon, with the gentlemen of Gray's Inn, and the Inner Temple, had " spared no 
pains nor travail in the setting forth, ordering and furnishing of this mask . . . 
and you. Sir Francis Bacon, especially, as you did then by your countenance and 
loving affection advance it, so let your good word grace it, which is able to add 
value to the greatest and least matters." "On Tuesday," says Chamberlain, writ- 
ing on the iSth of February, 1612-13," it came to Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple's 
turn to come with their mask, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver." 
{Court and Times of James I., vol. i, p. 227; see Spedding, vol. iv, p. 344.)^ 

And we find Bacon writing an essay on Masques, in which he 
gave directions as to scenery, music, colors and trappings, and even 
speaks of the necessity of sweet odors "to drown the steam and 
heat " of the audience ! 

And he philosophizes, as I have shown, upon the drama, its 
usefulness, its purposes for good, its characteristics; and describes 
how, in a play, the different passions may be represented, and how 

' Letter to Buckingham, 1619. ' Novum Orgamim. 

^Advancement o/ Learning, book ii. * Ibid. 

^ Did Francis Bacon Write " Shakespeare" ? part i. p. 8. 



COKROBORATIXG CIRCUMSTANCES. 277 

the growth and development of any special feeling or passion may 
be shown; and Macaulay writes (as if it were a foot-note to the 
passage) this in reference to the Shakespeare Plays: 

In a piece which may be read in three hours, we see a character gradually 
unfold all its recesses to us; we see it change with the change of circum- 
stances. The petulant youth rises into the politic and war-like sovereign. 
The profuse and courteous philanthropist soars into a hater and scorner of his 
kind. The tyrant is altered by the chastisement of affliction into a pensive 
moralist. 

And this student t)f the drama, this frequenter of the play- 
houses, this writer of plays and masks, this sovereign and pene- 
trating intellect could not perceive that there stood at his elbow 
(the associate, " the fellow of his clerk, Jonson) the vastest genius 
the human race had ever produced ! This philosopher of prose 
could not recognize the philosopher of poetry; this writer of prose 
histories did not know the writer of dramatical histories; this 
writer of sonnets, this "concealed poet," this "greatest wit" of 
the world (although known by another name), took no notice of 
that other mighty intellect, splendid wit and sweet poet, who acted 
on the boards of his own law school of Gray's Inn ! It is incom- 
prehensible. It is incredible. 

And, be it further remembered, Shakespeare dedicated both the 
Venus and Adonis and T/ic Rape of Liicreee to the Earl of South- 
ampton, and the Earl was Bacon's particular friend and associate, 
and a member of his laiu se/iooi of Grav's luii ; and yet, while Shake- 
speare dedicates his poems to the Earl, he seems not to have 
known his friend and fellow, Francis Bacon. On the other hand, 
in the fact that Southampton was a student in Gray's Inn, we see 
the reason why the Shakespeare poems were inscribed to him, 
under the cover of the play-actor's name. 

I have faith enough in the magnanimity of mind of Francis 
Bacon to believe that if he had really found, in humble life, a man 
of the extraordinary genius revealed in the Shakespeare Plays (sup- 
posing for an instant that they were not Bacon's work), he w^ould have 
stooped down and taken him by the hand; he would have intro- 
duced him to liis friends; he would have quoted from him in his 
writings, and we should liave found among his papers numbers of 
letters to and from him. Their lives would have impinged on each 
other; they would have discussed poetry and philosophy in speech 



V 



278 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

and in correspondence. Bacon would have visited Stratford, and 
Shakspere St. Albans. " Poets," said Ben Jonson, "are rarer births 
than kings;" and the man who wrote the Plays was the king of 
poets. Was Francis Bacon — "the wisest of mankind" — so blind 
or so shallow as to be unaware of the greatness of the Shakespeare 
Plays? Who will believe it? 

XII. Certain Incompatibilities with Shakspere. 

Let me touch passingly on some passages in the Plays which 
it would seem that the man of Stratford could not have written. 

Who can believe that William Shakspere, whose father followed 

the trade of a butcher, and who was himself, as tradition assures us, 

apprenticed to the same humble calling, could have written these 

lines in speaking of Wolsey? 

This butche/ s cur is venom-mouthed, and I 
Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best 
Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book 
Outworths a noble's blood.' 

Richard Grant White says: 

Shakespeare's works are full of passages, to write which, if he had loved his 
wife and honored her, would have been gall and wormwood to his soul; nay, 
which, if he had loved and honored her, he could not have written. The nature of 
the subject forbids the marshaling of this terrible array; but did the "flax-wench" 
whom he uses for the most degrading of comparisons ( Winter s Tale, i, 2) do 
more, " bfefore her troth-plight," than the woman who bore his name and whom 
his children called mother?'^ 

But Grant White fails to see that it is not a question as to 
whether Shakspere loved and honored his wife or not. Even if he 
had not loved and honored her, he would, if a sensitive and high- 
spirited man, for his own sake and the sake of his family, have 
avoided the subject as if it carried the contagion of a pestilence^ 
Again we are told, in all the biographies, that Shakspere was 
cruelly persecuted and punished by Sir Thomas Lucy, and "forced 
to fly the country," and that for revenge he wrote a bitter ballad 
against the Knight; and that subsequently, in T/w Merry Wives pf 
Windsor, he made Sir Thomas the object of his ridicule in the 
character of Justice Shallow. But if this be true, why did the 
writer of the Plays in the ist Henry VI. bring upon the stage the 
ancestor of this same Sir Thomas Lucy, Sir William Lucy, and 

' Ifcnry 1'///.^ i, i. "^ Li/e and Gt'tiius o/ Shak.. p. 51. 



COKKOBORA TING CIRCUMSTANCES. 



279 



paint him in honorable colors as a brave soldier and true patriot 
for the admiration of the public and posterity ? But the son of 
Shakspere's Lucy, Sir Thomas Lucy, was the intimate friend and 
correspondent of Francis Bacon. 

XIII. Shakspere was Falstaff. 

But there follows another question. It is evident that Justice 
Shallow was intended to personate Sir Thomas Lucy, and the play 
of The Merry Wives of Windsor opens with an allusion to the steal- 
ing of his deer. I quote the beginning of the act: 

Shalloiv. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a .Star Chamber matter of 
it; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow. 
Esquire. . . . 

Slender. . . . They may give the dozen white /uc-fs in their coat. 

The coat-of-arms of the Lucy family was three /uees, and from this 
the name was derived. So that herein it is placed beyond question 
that Justice Shallow is intended to represent Sir Thomas Lucy. 
This is conceded by all the commentators. It is also conceded 
that the deer which in this scene Sir John Falstaff is alleged to have 
killed were the same deer which Shakspere had slain in his youth. 

Shallow. It is a riot. . . . 

Page. I am glad to see your worships well; I thank you for my venison, 
Master Shallow. 

Shalloiv. Master Page, I am glad to see you; much good do it your good 
heart. I wished your venison better; // was ill killed. . . . 

Enter Falstaff. 
Falstaff. Now, Master Shallow; you'll complain of me to the King? 
Sfialloiv. Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer and broken open 
my lodge. 

Falstaff. But not kissed your keeper's daughter. 

Therefore it follows tliat if Shallow was Sir Thomas Lucy, and 
if the deer that were killed were the deer Shakspere killed, then 
S/iakspcre 7C'as Falstaff^ ! 

And if Shakspere wrote the Plays, he deliberately represented 
himself in the character of Falstaff. And what was the character 
of Falstaff as delineated in that very play ? It was that of a gross, 
sensual, sordid old liar and thief. The whole play turns on his 
sensuality united to sordidness. He makes love to Page's wife 
because "the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's 
purse; he hath a legion of angels." And Falstaff is also represented 



2 So FKAXCJS BACOA' THE AUTHOR OF TIJE PLAYS. 

as sharing in the thefts of his followers, as witness the following 
dialogue: 

Falstaff. I will not lend thee a penny. 

Pistol Why, then, the world's mine oyster. 
Which I with -sword will open. 

Falstaff. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should lay my counte- 
nance to pawn: I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you 
and your coach-fellow, Nym; or else you had looked through the grate like a 
geminy of baboons. I am damned in hell for swearing to gentlemen, my friends, 
you were good soldiers and tall fellows: and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle 
of her fan, I took 't upon mine honor thou hadst it not. 

Pistol. Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence? 

Falstaff. Reason, you rogue, reason: think'st thou I'll endangermy io\Agratis? 

Is it conceivable that the great man, the scholar, the philosopher, 
the tender-souled, ambitious, sensitive man who wrote the sonnets 
would deliberately represent himself as Falstaff' ? 

But if some one else wrote the Plays, then this whole scene con- 
cerning the deer-stealing contains, probably, a cipher narrative of 
the early lifq of Shakspere; for it is in the same play, as we shall 
see hereafter, that we find the cipher words William, Shakes, 
peere, and Francisco Bacon. And when we read the obscene anec- 
dotes which tradition has delivered down to us, touching Shak- 
spere's sensuality and mother-wit, and then look at the gross face 
represented in the monument in the Stratford church, we can 
realize that William Shakspere may have been the original of Fal- 
staff, and that it was not by accident he was represented as having 
killed the deer of that Justice Shallow who had the twelve white 
luces on his coat-of-arms. 

Richard Grant White, earnest anti-Baconian as he is, says of 
that bust: 

The monument is ugly; the staring, painted, figure-head-like bust hideous.' 

It is the face of Falstaff. 

XIV. A Curious Fact. 

I proceed now to call the attention of the reader to a curious 
fact, revealed by a study of the copies of legal documents found in 
Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. 

Shakspere purchased a house and lot in London, on the loth 
day of March, 1612, "within the precinct of the late Black Fryers." 

^ Knglanc/ Without ami U'/t/u'ii, p. 521. 



C0RK0B0RA71XG CIRCUMSTANCES. 281 

It has puzzled his biographers to tell what he wanted this property 
for. All his other purchases were in Stratford or vicinity. He did 
not need it for a home, for before this time he had retired to Strat- 
ford to live in his great house, New Place; and in the deed of pur- 
chase of the Blackf riars property he is described as " of Stratford-on- 
Avon, gentleman." The house and lot were close to the Blackfriars 
Theater, and property was falling in the neighborhood because of 
that proximity. Shakspere rented it to one John Robinson. 

But there are three curious features in connection with this 
purchase: 

1. Shakspere, although very rich at the time, did not pay down 
all the purchase-money, but left ^60 standing upon mortgage, 
which was not extinguished until after his death. 

2. Shakspere bought the property from Henry Walker, minstrel, 
for ^140, while Walker in 1604 had bought it for ^100. This repre- 
sented an increase equal to $2,400 to-day. And yet we find the peo- 
ple of that vicinity petitioning in 1618-19 to have the theater closed, 
because of the great injury it did to property-holders around it. 

3. Walker's grantor was Matthew Bacon, of Grays I>iii, in the 
county of Middlesex, gentleman, and included in the purchase was 
the following: ■ - 

And also all that plott of ground on the west side of the same tenement, which 
was lately inclosed with boordes, on two sides thereof, by Anne Bacon, rvidotc, so 
farre and in such sorte as the same was inclosed by the said An>:e BACON and not 
otherwise. 

Was this "Anne Bacon, widow," the mother of Francis Bacon? 
Her name was Anne. And who was Matthew Bacon, of Gray's 
Inn ? Was he one of Francis Bacon's family ? And is it not 
strange to find the names of Bacon and Shakspere coming together 
thus in a business transaction? And does it not look as if Shak- 
spere had paid a debt to some one by buying a piece of property 
for $2,400 more than it was worth, and giving a mortgage for ^60, 
equal to $3,600 of our money at the present time ? 

XV. The Northumberland House Manuscript. 

There is 'one other instance where the naine of Shakspere is 
found associated with that of Francis Bacon. 

In 1867 there was discovered in the library of Northumberland 
House, in London, a remarkable MS., containing copies of several 



282 FJiANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

papers written by Francis Bacon. It was found in a l)ox of old 
papers which had long remained undisturbed. There is a title- 
page, which embraces a iixhle of co/ifc/its of the volume, and this 
contains not only the names of writings unquestionably Bacon's, 
but also the names of plays which are supposed to have been 
written by Shakespeare. But only part of the manuscript volume 
remains, and the portions lost embrace the following pieces enu- 
merated on the title-leaf: 

Orations at Graie's Inns re7rlls 
.... Queen s MaU .... 

By Mr. Frattneis Bacon 
Essaies by the same author. 
Richard the Second. 
Richard the Third. 
Asmund and Cornelia. 
Isle of Dogs frinnt. 

By Thomas iVashe, inferior places.^ 

How comes it that the Shakespeare plays, RicJuird JI. and 
Richard III.., should be mixed up in a volume of Bacon's manu- 
scripts with his own letters and essays and a mask written by him 
in 1592? Judge Holmes says: 

And then, the blank space at the side and between the titles is scribbled all 
over with various words, letters, phrases and scraps of verse in English and Latin, 
as if the copyist were merely trying his pen, and writing down whatever first came 
into his head. Among these scribblings, beside the name of Francis Bacon 
several times, the name of William Shakespeare is written eight or nine times over. 
A line from The Rape of Lucrece is written thus: "Revealing day through every 
crannie peeps and," the writer taking peeps from the next couplet instead of 
spies. Three others are Anthony comfrl. and consort and honorificabilitudino 
and plaies [plays]. . . . The word honorificabilitttdino is not found in any dic- 
tionary that I know of, but in Love's Labor s Lost.- 

Costard, the clown, bandying Latin with the tall schoolmaster 
and curate (who "had been at a great feast of languages and 
stolen the scraps"), exclaims: 

Oh ! they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master 
hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the head as honorifca- 
bilitudinatihus. •'' 

Let those who are disposed to study this discovery turn to 
Judge Holmes' work. It is sufficient for me to ncrte here, that 
in a collection of Bacon's papers, made undoubtedly by his aman-^ 

' Holmes' /( uihorship 0/ .Shakespeare^ vol. li, p. 658, ed. 1886. ' Ibid., 658-682. 

* Act V, scene j. . 



C0A'A'0B0A\4 TING CIRCUMSTANCES. 283 

uensis, plays that are recognized to be Shakespeare's are em- 
braced; and the name of Francis Bacon and the name of William 
Shakespeare (spelled as it was spelled in the published quartos, 
but not as the man himself spelled it) are scribbled all over 
this manuscript collection, and at the same time sentences and 
words are quoted from the Shakespeare Plays and Poems. 

And, while we find this association of the two names in Bacon's 
library and private papers, there is not one word in his published 
writings or his correspondence to show that he knew that such a 
being as William Shakspere ever existed. 

'"Tis strange ; 'tis passing strange." 

XVI. Another Sincui.ar Fact. 

Edmund Spenser visited London in 1590, and in 1591 he pub- 
lished his poem. The Tears of the Muses, in which Thalia, the 
muse of poetry, laments that a change has come over the play- 
houses ; that 

The sweet delights of It-aming' s hrastar, 

That wont with comic sock to beautify 
The painted theaters, and fill with pleasure 

The listeners' eyes and ears with melody, 

are " all gone." 

And all that goodly glee 
Which wont to be the glory of gay wits, 
Is laid a-bed; 

and in lieu thereof "ugly barbarism and brutish ignorance " fill 
the stage, 

^ And with vain joys the vulgar entertain. 

Instead thereof scoffing .Scurrility 

And scornful Folly with Contempt is crept, 

Rolling in rhymes of shameless ribaldry 
Without regard or due decorum kept. 

And Spenser laments that the author, who fonnerly delighted with 
"goodly glee" and "■ leariiiii_i:['s treasure," has withdrawn — is tempo- 
rarily dead. 

And he, the man whom Nature's self had made 

To mock herself and Truth to imitate. 
With kindly counter under mimic shade. 
Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late; 
With whom all joy and jolly merriment 
Is also deaded and in dolor drent. 



2S4 /■'AAA'C/S J^'.ICOA' THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

But that tills was not an actual death, but simply a retirement 
.from the degenerate stage, is shown in the next verse but one: 

But that same gentle spirit from whose pen 

Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flow, 
Scorning the boldness of such base-born men 
Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw, 
Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell 
Than so himself to mockery to sell. 

It is conceded by all the commentators that these lines refer 
to the writer of the Shakespeare Plays: there was no one else to 
whom they could refer. But there are many points in which 
they are incompatible with the young man William Shakspere, of 
Stratford. 

In the first place, they throw back the date of his labors, as I 

have shown in a former instance, long anterior to the year 1592, at 

which time it is conceded Shakespeare first began to write for the 

stage. In 1590, the writer referred to by Spenser had not only 

written one, but many plays; and had had possession of the stage 

long enough to give it a cast and character, until driven out by 

the rage for vulgar satires and personal abuse. White says: 

The Tears of Ihe Muses had certainly bten written before 1590, when Shake- 
speare could not have risen to the position assigned by the first poet of the age to 
the subject of this passage; and probably in 1580, when Shakespeare was a boy of 
sixteen, in Stratford. 

In the next place, the man referred to by Spenser was a gciitlc- 

//la/i. The word gnitlf in these lines is clearly contradistin- 

a:uished from base-born. 

That same gentle spirit . . . 
Scorning the folly of such base-born men. 

No one will pretend that the Stratford fugitive was in 1590 "a 
gentleman." 

Shakspere, we are told, produced his dramas to make money; 

"■for gain, not glory, he winged his roving flight. ' Young, poor, 

just risen from the rank of horse-holder or call-boy, if not actually 

occupying it, it is not likely he could have resisted the clamors of 

his fellows for productions suitable to the degraded taste of the 

hour. But the man referred to by Spenser was a gentleman, a man 

of "learning," a man of refinement, and he 

Rather chose to sit in idle cell 
Than so himself to mockery to sell. 



CORROBORA TING CIRCUMSTANCES. 



-^85 



The comparison of the poet to the refined student in liis "cell " 
is a very inapplicable one to apply to an actor, be he Marlowe or 
Shakspere, daily appearing on the boards in humble characters, 
and helping to present to vulgar audiences the very obscenities and 
scurrilities of which Spenser complained. 

Again, if we examine that often-quoted verse: 

And he, the man whom Nature's self had made 

To mock herself and Truth to imitate, 
With kindly counter, under viiniic shade. 
Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late. 

The word counter is not known to our dictionaries in any sense 
that is consonant with tlie meaning of these lines. I take it to be a 
poetical abbreviation of "counterfeit," and this view is confirmed 
by the further statement that this gentle-born playwright, who 
despised the base-born play-makers, imitated truth under a shade 
or disguise; and this disguise was a iiiitnic one, to-wit, that of a 
mime — an actor. 

The name Willy in that day, as I have shown heretofore, was 
generally applied to all poets. 

XVII. Another Extraordinary Fact. 

It is sometimes said: How can you undertake to deny Shak- 
spere the honor of his own writings, when the Plays were printed 
during his life-time with his name on the title-page of each and 

>^y€ry one of theni ? 
V This is a mistake. According to the list of editions printed ixi 
Halliwell-Phillipps' O iitlincs of the Life of Shakespeare, p. 533 (and 
there is no better authority), it seems that the name of Shakespeare 
did not appear upon the title-page of any of the Plays until 1598. 
The Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece contained, it is true, 
dedicatory letters signed by Shakespeare; but the first play, Titus 
Andronicus, published in 1594, was without his name; the First Part 
of the Contention of the tico Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, published 
in 1594; the Tragedy of Richard, Duke of Yorke, published in 1595; 
Romeo and Juliet, published in 1597; Richard LL., published in 1597, 
and Richard LIL., printed in 1597, were all without the name of 
Shakspere or any one else upon the title-page. It was not until the 
publication of Love's Labor Lost, in /J^c?, that we find him set forth 



286 FRAXCJS BACOy THE AUTHOR OF TIIK J'/. A VS. 

as having any connection with the play; and he does not then 
claim to be the author of it. The title-page reads: 

As it was presented before her Highness this last Christmas. Newly corrected 
and augnienicd by IV. Shakespcre. 

In the same year the tragedy of J?/V/zd;/7/ //. is published, and 
the name of "William Shake-speare " appears as the author. 

It thus appears that during the six years from 1592 to 1598 eight 
editions of plays which now go by the name of Shakespeare were 
published without his name or any other name upon the title-page. 

In other words, not only did the Shakespeare Plays commence 
to appear while Shakspere was still in Stratford, and were captiva- 
ting the town while the author was holding horses or acting as call- 
boy; but for six years after the Plays which are distinctively 
known as his, and which are embraced in the Folio of 1623, had 
won great fame and profit on the stage, they were published in 
numerous quarto editions without his name or any other name 
on the title-page. This is mystery on mystery's head accumulate. 

XVIII. When were the Plays Written? 

But it will be argued by some that Francis Bacon had not the 
time to write the Shakespeare Plays; that he was too busy with 
politics, philosophy, law and statesmanship; that there was no time 
in his life when these productions could have been produced; and 
that it is absurd to think that he could act as Lord Chancellor and 
write plays for the stage at the same time. 

In the first place, it must be remembered that Francis Bacon 
was a man of extraordinary and phenomenal industry. One has 
but to look at the twenty volumes of his acknowledged writings to 
concede this. In illustration of his industry, we are told that he 
re-wrote his Essays thirty times ! His chaplain and biographer. Dr. 
Rawley, says: 

I myself have seen at the least twelve copies of the Iiistauratioii [meaning, says 
Spedding,' the Novum Organum^, revised year by year, one after another, and 
every year altered and amended in the frame thereof, till at last it came to that 
model in which it was committed to the press; as many living creatures do lick 
their yonng ones, till they bring them to the strength of their limbs. . . . He 
would suffer no moment of time to slip from him without some present improve- 
ment. 

' U'orks, vol. i, p. 47, Boston ed. 



CORHOBORAIVXG CIRCUMSTANCES. 287 

As the Noviiin Organinn embraces about three hundred and fifty 
octavo pages of the Boston edition, tlie reader can conceive the 
labor required to re-write this twelve times. Let these things be 
remembered when we come to consider the vastly laborious cipher- 
story written into the Plays. 

But an examination of Bacon's biography will show that he 
had ample leisure to have written the Plays. 

In the spring of 1579, Bacon, then eighteen years of age, returned 
from Paris, in consequence of the death of his father. He resided 
for a year or more at St. Albans. In 1581, then twenty years old, 
he *' begins to keep terms at Gray's Inn." In 1582 he is called to 
the bar. For three years we know nothing of what he is doing. 
In 1585 he writes a sketch of his philosophy, entitled The Greatest 
JUrtli of Time, which, it is supposed, was afterwards broadened out 
into T/ie Advancement of Learning. In 1585 the Contention between t/ie 
two Houses of York and Lancaster is supposed to have appeared. In 
1586 he is made a bencher. He is " /// umbra and not in public or 
frequent action." "His seclusion is commented on." In this year, 
according to Malone, 77ie Taming of tlie Siirew, 77ie Tivo Gentlemen 
of Verona and Love's Lai Iwr Lost appear, probably in imperfect forms, 
like the first of those thirty copies of the Essays. In 1587 (the 
year Shakspere is supposed to have come to London), Bacon helps 
in getting up a play, for the Gray's Inn revels, called The Misfor- 
tunes of Arthur. He also assists in some masks to be played before 
Elizabeth. Here certainly we have the leisure, the disposition and 
the kindred employment. In 1588 he becomes a member of Par- 
liament for Liverpool. He writes a short paper called an Adver- 
tisement Toucliing the Controversies of the Church. To this year 
Dr. Delius attributes Venus and Adonis and Mr. Furnival Lo7r's Labor 
Lost. Shakspere is, at this time, either holding horses at the door 
of the play-hc)use or acting as call-boy, or in some other subordinate 
capacity about the play-house. In 1589-90 Bacon puts forth a letter 
to Walsingham, on The Government and the Papists. No one can 
tell what he is working at; and yet, knowing his industry and 
energy, we may be sure he is not idle; for in the next year he 
writes to his uncle Burleigh: 

I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful than 
most parts of action are. 



288 /'A'-LVCVS BACON THE AUTHOR 01-' THE J'LAYS. 

And again he says in the same letter: 

If your Lordship will not carry me on, ... I will sell the inheritance I have 
and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain, that shall be 
executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service and become some sorry 
book-niaktr, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth which, Anaxagoras said, lay so 
deep. 

In 1591 the Queen visits him at his brother's place at Twicken- 
ham, and he 7V rites a sonnet in her honor. 
Mrs. Pott says: 

To 1 591 is attributed ist Henry VI., of which the scene is laid in the same 
provinces of France which formed Bacon's sole experience of that country. Also 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (probably in its present form), which reflects 
Anthony's sojourn in Italy. Henceforth the " Shakespeare " Comedies continue 
to exhibit the combined influence of Anthony's letters from abroad, with Francis' 
studies in Gray's Inn.' 

This Jst Henry VI. is the play referred to by Halliwell-Phillipps, 
as acted for the first time March 3, 1592, and as the first of the 
Shakespeare Flays. 

In 1592 Francis is in debt, borrowing one pound at a time, and cast 
into a sponging-house by a " hard " Jew or Lombard on account of 
a bond. His brother, Anthony, comes to his relief. Soon after 
appears The Merchant of Venice, in which Antonio relieves Bas- 
sanio. Does this last name contain a hint of Bacon, after the ana- 
grammatic fashion of the times.-' 

Dr. Delius attributes Romeo and Juliet to this date. 

In 1593 Bacon composes for some festive occasion a device, or 
mask, called A Conference of Pleasure. 

During all these years Bacon lives very much retired. He says, 
in 1594, he is "poor and sick and workitig for bread.'' What at ? 
He says, at another time, " The bar will be my bier." He writes his 
uncle Burleigh in 1595: 

It is true, my life hath been so private as I have no means to do your Lordship 
service. 

The Venus and Adonis appears in 1593, with a dedication from 
William Shakespeare to the Earl of Southampton, Bacon's fellow 
in Gray's Inn. When the fortunes of Bacon and Southampton 
afterward separate, because of Southampton's connection with the 
Essex treason, the poem is re-published ivithout the dedication. 

'^ Did Francis Bacnji Write Shakespeare ? p. 14. 



CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 289 

In 1594 Lady Anne, Bacon's mother, is distressed about his de- 
votion to plays and play-houses. In 1590 she had written to Anthony, 
complaining of his brother's irregular hours and poet-like habits: 

I verily think ynur brother's weak stomach to digest hath been much caused 
and confirmed by untimely going to bed. and then musing ncscio i/uti/ when he 
should sleep, and then, in consequence, by late rising and long lying in bed, 
whereby his men are made slothful and himself sickly.' 

In 1594 Bacon begins his Prom us of Formularies and Elegancies, 
which has been so ably edited by Mrs. Pott, of London," which 
fairly bristles with thoughts, expressions and quotations found in 
the Shakespeare Plays, It is clearly the work of a poet who is 
studying the elegancies of speech, with a view to increase his capac- 
ity for the expression of beautiful thoughts. It is not the kind of 
work in which a mere philosopher would engage. 

In this year 1594 "Shakespeare's" Comedy of Errors appears 
(for the first time), at Bacon's law school, Gray's Inn. In the same 
year Lucrece is published. In the same j'^ear Bacon writes a Device, 
or mask, which Essex presents to her Majesty on the *' Queen's 
Day/' called The Device of an Indian Prince. In this year, also, 
Bacon is defeated by Cecil for the place of Attorney or Solicitor- 
General^ and, as Dr. Delius thinks, the play of Richard III., in 
which the hump-backed tyrant is held up to the detestation of 
mankind, appears the same year ! 

In 1604 Bacon writes to Sir Tobie Matthew, speaking of some 
important matter, that he cannot recall what passed, "my head 
being then wholly employed upon invention^' a word which he uses 
for works of the imagination. 

Here, then, we have the proof that the Plays appeared during 
Bacon's unemployed youth. No one pretends that he wrote plays 
while he was holding great and lucrative offices in the state. 

XIX. Some Skcret Means of Income. 

And we have evidences in Bacon's letters — although they seem 
to have been gone over carefully and excised and garbled — that 
he had some secret means of support. 

In 1595 he writes Essex: 

I am purposed not to follow the practice of the law, and my reason is only 
because it drinketh too much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes. 

' Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, May 24, 1590 — Life and Works, vol. 1, p. 114. 
'^ Bacon'' s Promts, by Mrs. Henry Pott. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



y 



290 FRANCIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

Mr. Spedding says: 

It is easier to understand why Bacon was resolved not to devote his life to the 
ordinary practice of a lawyer, than what plan he had to clear himself of the diffi- 
culties which were now accumulating upon him, and to obtain means of living and 
working. What course he betook himself to at the crisis which had now arrived, 
I cannot possibly say. I do not find any letter of his which can possibly be assigned 
to the winter of 1596, nor have I met among his brother's papers ivith anything 
Tvhich indicates ivhat lie ^oas about. 

And two years before, in April, 1593, we find Bacon writing to 
the Earl of Essex thus: 

I did almost conjecture, by your silence and countenance, a distaste in the 
course I imparted to your Lordship touching mine own fortune. . . . And for the 
free and loving advice your Lordship hath given me, I cannot correspond to the 
same with greater duty than by assuring your Lordship that I will not dispose of 
myself without your allowance. . . . But notwithstanding I know it will be pleas- 
ing to your good Lordship that I use my liberty of replying, and I do almost 
assure myself that your Lordship will rest persuaded by the answer of those rea- 
sons which your Lordship vouchsafed to open. They were two; the one that I 
should include. . . . 

Mr. Spedding says: 

Here our light goes suddenly out, just as we are going to see how Bacon had 
resolved to dispose of himself at this juncture." 

Is it not very remarkable that this letter should be clipped off 
just at this point ? We are forced to ask, first, what was the course 
which he intended to take " touching mine own fortune ; " and 
secondly, if there was no mystery behind his life, why was this 
letter so emasculated ? 

And it seems he intimated to his mother that he had some 
secret means of obtaining money. Lady Bacon writes to Anthony 
at the same time, and in the same month and year: 

Besides, your brother told me before you twice, then, that he intended not to 
part with Markes [an estate], and the rather because Mr. Mylls would lend him 
^900; and, as I remember, I asked him how he was To come out of debt. His 
answer was that means would be made without thatr 

Remember that it was not until January, 1598, that Bacon pub- 
lished the first of his acknowledged formal works, his Essays. And 
these were not the forty long essays we now have, but ten short, 
condensed compositions, which occupied but thirteen double pages 
^)f the original quarto edition. These, with a few brief papers,- are 
the only acknowledged fruits we have to represent the nifieteen years\ 

' I.i/t- and H'urA-s, veil, i, p. 235. " Ibid., p. 244. 



COKJWBOKATIXG CIJ^Ci'MSTAXCES. 291 

between ilic date of his rctii) n froi/i Paris, in lS79i ^^'"^^ t/w publication 
of /lis ten I>riif essays in January, isg8. 

What was that most fecund, prolific, laborious writer doing 
during tliese nearly twenty years? He was brimful of energy, 
industry, genius, mirth and humor: lu)w did he expend it? What 
was that painful course of study and meditation which he under- 
went daily, as he told his uncle Burleigh ? / 

Read what Hepworth Dixon says of him at the age of twenty-four: 

How he appears in outward grace and aspect among these courtly and martial 
■contemporaries, the miniature by Hilyard helps us to conceive. Slight in build, 
rosy and round in flesh, dight in sumptuous suit; the head well set, erect, and 
framed in a thick, starched fence of frill; a bloom of study and of travel on the fat, 
girlish face, which looks far younger than his years; the hat and feather tossed aside 
from the broad, white brow, over which crisps and curls a mane of dark, soft hair; 
an English nose — firm, open, straight; mouth delicate and small — a lady's or a 
jester s vioiith — a thousand pranks and humors, quibbles , whims and laughters lurking 
in its twinkling, tremulous lines. Such is Francis Bacon at the age of twenty-four.' 

Is this the description of a dry-as-dust philosopher? Is it not 
rather the picture of the youthful scholar, the gentleman, the wit, 
the poet, "fresh from academic studies," who wrote T/ie T-wo 
Gentlemen of J'e/ona and Love's Labor Lost I 

In brief, the Shakespeare Plays are the fruits of Bacon's youth; 
for it is in youth he tells us that the imagination streams with 
divine felicity into tlic mind; while his philosophical works are the 
product of middle life. It is not until 1603, wlien Bacon was forty- 
two years of age, that he published the first of his scientific works, 
entitled Valerius Ter minus ; oi\ tlie Lnterpretation of Xaiui'e : -with the 
Annotations of Lfermes Stel/a. And who, we ask passingly, was 
" Hermes Stella " ? Was Bacon, with his usual secretiveness, seek- 
ing another tivvv/ — another Shakspere ? Mrs. Pott says: 

There is something so mysterious about this strange title, and in the obscurity of 
the text itself as well as in the meaning of the astronomical and astrological sym- 
bols written on the blank outside of the volume, that Mr. Ellis and Mr. Spedding 
comment upon them, but can throw no real light upon them. 

XX. Anothkk Mystery. 

W. A. A. Watts, in a paper read before die Bacon Society of 
London while this work is going through the press,'' calls attention 
to the striking fact that Ben Jonson, besides stating that Bacon 

' Dixon's Personal History oy Lord Baeott, p. 25. 
^Journal 0/ tfte Baconian Society, Aug., 1887, p. 130. 



292 J-'KAA'CIS BACON THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 

had "filled all numbers' and was "the mark and acme of our lan- 
guage," in a poem entitled " Ihiderwoods," addressed to Bacon on 

his birthday, says: 

In the midst, 
Thou stand'st as though o niystoy thou didst. 

This is certainly extraordinary. What was the mystery ? Was 
it in connection with those "numbers" which excelled anything in 
Greek or Roman dramatic literature, and which were " the mark 
and acme of our language"? If not, what did Ben mean? 

XXI. Coke's Insults. 

We find all through that period of Bacon's life, between 1597 

and his accession to the place of Lord Chancellor, that he was the 

subject of a great many slanders. But while he alludes to the 

slanders, he is careful not to tell us what they were. Did they refer 

to the Shakespeare Plays ? Did they charge that he paid his debts 

with money taken in at the door of the play-house? For we may 

be sure that among the actors there were whisperings which it 

would be difficult to keep from spreading abroad; and 

Thus comes it that my name receives a brand. 

And almost thus my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 

But there has come down to us a letter of Bacon which gives 
us some account of the insults he was subjected to. In it Bacon 
complains, in 1601, to his cousin, Lord Secretary Cecil, that his 
arch-enemy, Mr. Attorney-General Coke, had publicly insulted him 
in the Exchequer. He tells that he moved for the reseizure of the 
lands of one George Moore, a relapsed recusant, fugitive and traitor 
He says: 

Mr. Attorney kindled at it and said: " Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth against 
me pluck it out, for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do 
you good." I answered coldly, in these very words: " Mr. Attorney, I respect 
you; I fear you not; and the less you speak of your own greatness the more will I 
think of it." 

He replied: " I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness toward you, icho 
are less than little j less than the least;" and other such strange light terms he ga7'e 
me, with such insulting which cannot be expressed. Herewith I stirred, yet I said 
no more but this: " Mr. Attorney, do not depress me so far; for I have been your 
better, and may be again, when it please the Queen." With this he spake, neither 
I nor himself could tell what, as if he had been born Attorney-General; and in the 
end bade me not meddle with the Queen's business, but mine own. . . . Then he 
said it ■zcere good to clap a capias tttlegatum upon my back ! To which I only said he 
could not, and that he was at fault; for he hunted upon an old sent. 




C0RR0B0I^A7VXi; CIKCiMSTAXCES. 293 

He gave me a number of disgraceful words besides, which I answered with 
■silence.' 

And Bacon writes Cecil, evidently with intent to have him 
silence Coke. 

I will ask the reader to remember this letter when we come to 
the Cipher Narrative. It shows, it seems to me, tliat Cecil knew 
of something to Bacon's discredit, and that Coke, Cecil's follower, 
had heard of it and blurted it out in his rage in open court, and 
threatened Bacon with arrest; and Bacon, writes to his cousin for 
protection against Coke's tongue. Spedding says the threat of the 
xapids utlegatuvi may possibly have referred to a debt that Bacon 
•owed in 1598; but what right would Coke have to arrest Bacon for 
a debt due to a third party, and which must have been paid three 
years before? And why should Bacon say ''he was at fault." If 
Coke referred to the debt he was not " at fault," for Bacon cer- 
tainly had owed it. 

XXII. Conclusion. 

In conclusion I would say that I have in the foregoing pages 
shown that, if we treat the real author of the Plays, and Francis 
Bacon, as two men, they belonged to the same station in society, 
to the same profession — 'the law; to the same political party and 
to the same faction in the state; that they^held the same religious 
views, the same philosophical tenets and the same purposes in life. 
That each was a poet and a philosopher, a writer of dramatic com- 
positions, and a play-goer. That Bacon had the genius, the oppor- 
tunity, the time and the necessity to write the Plays, and ample 
reasons to conceal his authorship. 

I proceed now to another branch of my argument. I shall 
attempt to show that these two men, if we may still call them such, 
pursued the same studies, read the same books, possessed the same 
tastes, enjoyed the same opinions, used the same expressions, em- 
ployed the same unusual words, cited the same quotations and fell 
into the same errors. 

If all this does not bring the brain of the poet under the hat of 
the philosopher, what will you have ? \ 

' Spedding, Li/c and Works, vol. iii, p. l>. London : Longmans. 



PART 111. 



PARALLELISMS. 

CHAPTER I. 

IDENTIC A I. EXPRESSIONS. 

As near as tlu- oxtrcmcsl ends 
Of parallels. 

Troilns itnd Crfss/^a, /, j. 

WHO does not remember that curious word used by Hamlet, 
to describe the coldness of the air, upon the platform where 

he awaits the Ghost: 

It is very cold. 

It is a nipping and an r(7^i-r a'lr.^ 

We turn to Bacon, and we find this very word used in the same 

sense: 

Whereby the cold becomes more eagtr.'^ 

There is another strange word used by Shakespeare: 

Light thickens. 
And the crow makes wing to the rocky wood.'' 

We turn again to Bacon, and we find the origin of this singular 
expression: 

For the over-moisture of the brain doth thicki-ii the spirits \ isual.^ 

In the same connection we have in Bacon this expression: 
The cause of dimness of sight is the expense of spirits.'' 

We turn to Shakespeare's sonnets, and we find precisely the 
same arrangement of words: 

TV/' expense of spirit in a waste of shame. 



> Hamlet, i, 4. ' Mact>eth, iii, 2. = J5i(j_ 

' Xaiural History, % 688. ' Natural History, § 693. 

205 



'.gO 



PARALLELISMS. 



One of the most striking parallelisms of thought and expression 
occurs in the following. Bacon says: 

Some noises help sleep, as . . . soft singing. The cause is, for that they 
move in the spirits a gentle attention.^ 

In Shakespeare we have: 

I am never merry when I hear sweet music. 
The reason is, your spirits are attentive.'^ 

Here we have the same words applieil in the same sense to the same 
thing, the effect of music; and in each case the philosopher stops to 
give the reason — "the cause is," "the reason is." 

Both are very fond of the expressions, "parts inward" and 

"parts outward," to describe the interior and exterior of the body. 

Bacon says: 

Mineral medicines have been extolled that they are safer for the otitioani ih&n 
ih& inivani parts. ^ 

And again: 

While the life-blood of Spain went iirwani to the heart, the piittvarJ limbs and 
members trembled and could not resist.'' 

Shakespeare has it: 

I see men's judgments are 
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward 
Do draw the inivant quality after them, 
To suffer all alike." 

Falstaff tells us: 

But the sherris warms it and makes it course from the in7c>an/s to the parts 
extreme'. " 

Bacon says: 

Infinite' 7'ariations.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Nor custom stale 

Her ill finite 'variety. ^ 

The word infinite is a favorite with both writers. 

Bacon has: 

Occasions are infinite.'' 

Infinite honor.'" 

The i)! finite flight of birds." 

1 Natural History, % 745. " 2d Henry If., iv, 3. 

' Merchant 0/ Venice, v, i. ' Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. 

' Advancement of Learning, book ii. ** A ntony and Cleopatra, ii, 2. 

< Speecli in Parliment, 39 Elizabeth (1597-8) * Wisdom 0/ the A ncients — Ackeloiis. 

— Life and Works, vol. ii, p. 80. '"Speech. 

^Antony and CleoJ>atra, iii, 2. " Seiv Atlantis. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 297 

Shakespeare has: 

Conclusion infinite of easy ways to die.' 
Fellows oi.in/tnile tongue. - 
A fellow of in finite jest.'' 
• Infinite in faculties.^ 

Nature's infinite book of secrecy.^ 

Bacon says: 

Man in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations; . . . 
•ihe faculties of the soul.* 

Shakespeare says: 

How infinite in faculties,'' 

Bacon speaks of 

That gigantic state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the world, such as 
-was Lucius Sylla.'' • 

This is a very {)eculiar and unusual expression; we turn to 
Shakespeare, and we tind Queen Margaret cursing the bloody 
Duke of Gloster, in the play of Richard f If , in these words: 

If heaven have any grievous plague in store, 
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee, 
Oh, let them keep it, till thy sins be ripe, 
And then hurl down their indignation 
On thee, the tivitbler of the poor ivorlifs peace.' 

In Shakespeare we find: 

Which is to bring Signor Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of 
affection, the one with the other.'" 

This was regarded as stich a strange and unusual comparison 
that some of the commentators proposed to change it into " a moot- 
ing of affection." Btit we turn to Bacon and we find the same 
simile: 

Parkin sought to corrupt the servants of the lieutenant of the Tower by moun- 
tains of promises}^ 

Bacon says: 

To fall from a discord, or harsh accord, upon a eoinonl of s-u>eet accord.'- 

'^ Antony ami Cleo/>atra,\, 2. '' Hamlet ^n^i. 

^ Henry V., v, 2. ^ Advancement 0/ Learning. 

' Hamlet, v, i. ' Richard ///., i, 3. 

•• Ibid., ii, 2. '» Much Ado about Nothing, ii, 2. 

^Antony and Cleopatra, i, 2. " History 0/ Henry VH. 

* Advancement 0/ 1, earning, book ii. ''■^ Adi'nncement oj" Learning, 



298 



PARALLELISMS. 



Shakespeare says: 

That is not moved with concord of sweet sounds.' 

Here we have three words used in the same order and sense by 

both writers. 

We find in Shakespeare this well-known but curious expression: 

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Jioiig/i-hcw them how we will." 

This word occurs only once in the Plays. George Stevens says: 

Dr. Farmer informs me that these words are merely technical. A woolman, 
butcher and dealer in skewers lately observed to him that his nephew (an idle lad) 
could only assist him in making them. "He could roiii^h-hcTv them, but I was 
obliged to shape their ends." Whoever recollects the profession of Shakspere's 
father will admit that his son might be no stranger to such terms. / Ita-.'c fre- 
quently seen packages of 'wool pinn d up -with ske-wers. 

This is the sort of proof we have had that Shakspere wrote the 

Plays. It is very evident that the sentence means, that while we 

may hew out roughly the outlines of our careers, the ends we reach 

are shaped by some all-controlling Providence. And when we turn 

to Bacon we find the very word used by him, to indicate carved 

out roughly: 

A rough-hewn seaman.* 

And we find again in Shakespeare the same idea, that while we 
may shape our careers in part, the results to be attained are beyond 
our control: 

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.'* 

Bacon says: 

Instruct yourself in all things between heaven and earth which may tend to 
virtue, wisdom and honor.'' 

Shakespeare has: 

Crawling hetween hea^'cn and earth.'' 

There are more things /;/ heai'en and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' 

Bacon refers to 

The ])articular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the 
mind. 

Shakespeare says: 

Canst thou not minister io a mind diseased ?^ 

' Merchant of Tenice. V, t. - lliitiitet. v, 2. 3 Apopltihcgnis. * Hauilei. iii, 2. 

* Bacon's Letter to the Earl of Rutland, written in the name of the Earl of Essex — Life and 
//'(>rX\v, vol. ii, p. 18. •'•//««//<■/, iii, I. "< /Ianitet,\, s- " A/ac6et/i, V, 3. 



IDEN TIC A L EXP RE SSIONS. 



299 



Here the parallelism is complete. In each case it refers to 
remedies for mental disease, and in each case the word i/n/iistcr is 
used, and the "diseases of the mind" of the one finds its counter- 
part in " mind diseased" of the other, a change made necessary by 
the rhythm. 

Surely the doctrine of accidental coincidences will not explain 
this. 

Bacon says: 

Men have their time, and dir many /i/iirs, in desire of some things which they 
principally take to heart.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Cowards dir iucdiv times before their deaths.' 

Bacon says: 

The even carriage between two factions proceedeth not always of moderation, 
but of a triteness to a man' s self, with end to make use of both.-' 

And again he says: 

Be so t?uie to thyself a.s thou be not/"(7Ai- to otiiers.* 

Shakespeare says: 

To thine 07c>n self be true, 
A.nd it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then he. false to any man." 

Bacon says: 

The ripeness or unripeness of the occasion must ever be well weighed." 

Shakespeare says: 

A'ipeness is all.' 

In Shakespeare we have this singular expression: 

O Heaven ! a beast, that wants diseoiirse of reason. 
Would have mourned longer.** 

This expression "discourse of reason" is a very unusual one. 

Massinger has: 

It adds to my calamity that I have 
Discourse rt;/^/ reason. 

Gifford thought that Shakespeare had written "discourse a/nf 
reason," and that the of was a typographical error: but Knight, in 
discussing the question, refers to the lines in Hamlet : 

^'E.^s.^YO/Friendshi/: ^ 'Essay Of Faction. ^ Hamlet, {, 2. ''Lear,\\'2. 

^/nt/rtx Crfsar, a, 2. ' Essay O/ ir/si/oi/. '^ Essay O/ Deinys. « Uniidet, \, 1. 



300 PARALLELISMS. 

Sure he that made us with such large discourse. 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and god-like reason 
To fust in us unused.' 

But when we turn to Bacon we find this expression, which has 
puzzled the commentators, repeatedly used. For instance: 

Martin Luther but in discourse of reason, finding, etc.'-' 

Also: 

God hath done great things by her [Queen Elizabeth] past discourse of reason.'^ 

And again: 

True fortitude is not given to man by nature, but must grow out of discourse of 
•on.* 

Bacon has: 

But men ... if they be not carried away with a ivhirlwind or tempest of 
ambition.^ 

Shakespeare has: 

For in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of your 
passion.* 

Here we have not only the figure of a wind-storm used to repre- 
sent great mental emotions, but the same word, nay, the same 
words, tempest and 7vhirlwind, used in the same metaphorical sense 
by both. 

Mr. James T. Cobb calls my attention, while this work is going 
through the press, to the following parallelism. 
Macbeth says: 

Life's but a walking shadow."^ 

Bacon writes to King James: 

Let me live to serve you, else life is hut the shadow of deatii to your Majesty's 
most devoted servant 

And, again, Mr. Cobb notes this. 
Bacon says: 

It is nothing else but words, which rather sound than sii^nify anything, 

' Act iv, scene 4. '■' Advancc7)U'nt 0/ Learning, book i. 

^ History 0/ Squires' Conspiracy — Li/e and Works, vol. ii, p. 116. 

■• Bacon's Letter to the Earl of Rutland, written in the name of the Earl of Essex — Life and 
}\\iyks, vol. ii, p. 12. ^ Ati7'ancei)iciit 0/ Learning, book ii. '• Ilatnlet, iii, 2. ''Macbeth, v, 5. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. oj, 

Shakespeare makes Macbeth say of human life: 

'Tis a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. 
Signifying nothing} 

A. J. Dufiield, of Delaware Mine, Michis^an, calls my attention 
to the following parallelism. 
Shakespeare: 

What a ])iece of work is man ! , . . The paragon of animals; the beauty of 
the world} 

While Bacon has: 

The souls of the living are the />iaitty of the world.^ 

Both writers use the physical eye as a type or symbol of the 
intellectual faculty of perception. 
Bacon says: 

The eyes of his understanding.* 

For everything depends on fixing the mind's eye steadily.* 

Illuminate the eyes of our mind} 

While in Shakespeare we have: 

Hamlet. My father, — methinks I see my father. 
Horatio. Oh, where, my lord ? 
Hamlet. In my mind' s eye, Horatio. 

And again: 

Mine eye is my mind.' 

Bacon says: 

Pirates and impostors . . . -ATa the common enevu'es of mankind.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

And mine eternal jewel 
Given to the common enemy of man 
To make them kings. ^ 

Shakespeare also says: 

Consider, he's an enemy to mankind.^" 

Thou common whore of mankind. ^'^ , 

Mrs. Pott"' points out a very striking parallelism. 

' Act V, scene 5. ' Sonnet. 

- Hamlet, ii, 2. ^History 0/ Henry VIT.' 

= Essay jPrtW. * Macbeth, \\\, \. 

* History of Squires' Conspiracy — Life and Works, vol. ii, p. 113. '" Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 

' Introduction to Novum Onranum. n Timon of Athens, iv, :?.- 

' Prayer. »"■» Prom us, p. 24. 



1.02 PARALLELISMS. 

In Bacon's letter to King James, which accompanied the sending 
of a portion of The History of Great Britain, he says: 

This being but a leaf or two, I pray your pardon if I send it for your recrea- 
tion, considering that lo-rc must iircp 'u'licir it cannot j^o. 

We have the same thouglit in the same words in T/ie Two Gen- 
tlemen of J'erona, in this manner: 

. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that /ctv 

Must creep in service 'where it cannot go. ' 

We have in Bacon the word varnish used as a synonym for adorn, 
precisely as in Shakespeare. 
Bacon : 

But my intent is, without ','arnish or amplification, justly to weigh the dignity 
of knowledge.-' 

Shakespeare has: 

I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver.-' 
And set a double -rarnish on the fame* 
Beauty doth varnish age.^ 

J. T. Cobb calls attention to the following parallelism. Bacon, 

in his letter of expostulation to Coke, says: 

The arising to honor is arduous, the standing slippery, the descent headlong. 

Shakespeare says: 

Which, when they fall, as being slippery slanders, 
The love that leaned on them as slippery, too. 
Do one pluck down another, and together 
Die in the fall.'' 

The image of passion devouring the body of the man is common 
to both. 

Bacon says: 

It causeth the spirit to/i'tv/ upon the juices of the body.' 
Envy feedeth upon the spirits/ 

Shakespeare says: 

If it will /(■(•(/ nothing else, it will feed my revenge.^ 
The thing \.\iz.\. feeds their fury.'" 

' Act iv, scene 2. ^ Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. 

''■ Ad7'ance»tent 0/ Learning, book i. '' History 0/ Life and Death. 

3 Otiicllo, i, 3. 8 Ibid. 

■• Hamlet, iv, 7. " Merchant 0/ I 'enice, iii, i . 

= Love' s Labor Lost, iv, 3. '" Taming 0/ the Shrew, ii, i. 



303 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 

Feed {i\\. the ancient grudge.' 

Advantage /d'c7/.v him fat.'- 

To y'<'<7/ contention in a lingering act. ^ 

J. T. Cobb points out this parallelism. 
Shakespeare: 

Assume a virtue if you have it not.^ 

Bacon says: 

All wise men, to decline the envy of their own virtues, use to ascribe them to 
Providence and Fortune; for so they may the better assume them.'^ 



Bacon speaks of 



The areideuts of life.'' 
The air ! dents of time.'' 



Shakespeare says: 

As place, riches, favor, 
Prizes of aeeident as oft as merit. ^ 

With mortal ureide/its oppre.st. " 

The shot of aeeident, the dart of chance.'" 

Bacon says: 

And I do extremely desire there may be a full cry from all sorts of people. ^^ 

Macbeth says: 

And I have bought 
Golden opinions from all sorts of people }'- 

Here we have the same collocation of words. 

Bacon says: 

Not only that it may be done, but that it may be well done.''* 

If that be done which I hope by this time is done, and that other matter shall 
be done which we wish may be done.''* 

Shakespeare says: 

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well 
It were done quickly.''' 

What's done cannot t)e undone.'*' 



* Merchant of Venice, i, 3. 
"^ 1st Henry IV., iii, 2. 

^ 2d Henry Il\, i, i. 

■* Hamlet, iii, 4. 

5 Essay Of Fortune. 

<* Letter to Sir R. Cecil. 

' Letter to Villiers, June 3, i6i6. 

* Troilus and Cress/da, iii, 3. 
" Cyinbeline, v, 4. 



^'>Ot/ietio, iv, I. 

" Letter to Villiers, June 12, 1616. 

12 Macbeth, i, 7. 

'•'' Letter to Lord Chancellor. 

'* Letter to Sir John Stanhope — iLZ/l' and 

Works, vol. ii, p. 50. 
'^^ Macbeth, i, 7, 
■«Ibid., V, I. 



,04 r.-lKALLEU^iMS. 

HacDii says: 

lint 1 will pray for you to the last gasp} 

Shakespeare says: 

I will follow thee 
To the last gasp.'- 

Fight till the last gasp} 
Here is another identical collocation of words. 

Bacon says: 

The new company anti the old company are but the sons of Adam to me.* 
Shakespeare says: 

Adains sons are my brethren.* 

Bacon says: 

The common lot of mankind.* 

Shakespeare has: 

The common curse of mankind.' 

Bacon: 

The infirmity of the human understanding.* 

Shakespeare: 

The infirmity of sense.'* 

A friend should bear his friend's infirmHies}^ 

And Mr. J. T. Cobb lias called my attention to tliis parallelism. 

Bacon says: 

All those who have in some measure committed themselves to the waters of 
experience, seeing they were infirm of purpose, etc." 

While in Shakespeare we have: 

Infirm of purpose. Give me the daggers.'' 

Bacon: 

Every tangible body contains an in~'isidle and intangible spirit}^ 

Shakespeare: 

O, thou invisible spirit of wine.'^ 



> Letter to King Jaincs, 1621. » Measure- /or Measure, v, i. 

^ As Von Like It, li, 3. '^^ Julius Ctrsar, iv, 3. 

3 1st Henry I'/., \, i. " The Interpretation 0/ Xature, Montagu 

■• Letter to VMlliers. ed., vol. ii, p. 550. 

''Much Ado about Nothing, ii, \. ^"^ Macbeth, ii,2. 

« Introduction to Great Instauration. ^^ Novum Organum, book ii. 

' Troilus and Cressida, ii, 3. ** Othello, ii, 3. 

* Noz'um Organum, book ii. 



JDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 305 

Bacon: 

Flame, at llic ihourmU of its generation, is mild and gentle} 
Shiikespeare: 

As mild and gniilc as the cradled babe.' 

He was i,''(7///t', /;///</ and virliious.'^ 

I will be mild and giii/li- in my words.'' 

Bacon: 

Custom . . . i\n aft- 0/ fiatuir.^ 
Shakespeare: 

This is the apt- of form, monsieur the nice.* 

O sleep, thou ape of death. ' 

Bacon says: 

Another precept of this knowledge is to imitate nature, which doth nothing in 
vain.* 

In artificial works we should certainly prefer those which approach the nearest 
to an imitation of nature.'''' 

We find tlie same expression in Shakespeare: 

1 have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made 
them well, they imitated luimanity i^o abominably."^ 

And in the preface to the Folio of 1623, whicli was probably 
written by the author of the Plays, we read: 

He was a happy imitator of nature. 

Bacon speaks of a 

Medicine . . . of secret wa//]jJ7///i' and disagreement toward man's body ; . . . 
it worketh either by corrosion or by a secret malignity and enmity to nature." 

Shakespeare describes the drug which Hamlet's uncle poured 

into his father's ear as 

Holding such enmity with blood of man. 

And again we have: 

A lingering dram, that should not work 
Alaliciously like poison." 

Though parting be a fretful corrosive, 
It is applied to a deathful wound. '■' 



■ Novum Organtoit, book ii. ^Advancement t>/ Learntftg.,\iQ6k ii. 

^ Henry I'/., iii, 2. ^ Novum Organitm, book ii. 

3 Richard III., i, 2. "> Hamlet, iii, 2. 

* Ibid., iv, 4. II Natural History, cent, i, § 36. 
^Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. '^ Winter's Tale, i, 2. 

* Love's Labor Lost, v, 2. ^^ 2d Henry /'/., iii, 2. 
' Cyinheline, ii, 2. 



3o6 



PARALLELISMS. 

Bacon says: 

Of all substances which nature has produced, man's body is the most extremely 
compounded. ' 

Shakespeare says: 

The brain of this foolish co/npoundc-d liay, man.i 

And Bacon, speaking of man, says: 

Certain particles were taken from divers living creatures, and mixed and tem- 
pered with that clayic mass." 

Bacon says: 

The heavens turn about and . . . make an excellent music* 

Shakespeare says, in Hamlet: 

And there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ; yet cannot you 
make it speak. 

Bacon says: 

The nature of sounds in general hath been superficially observed. It is one of 

the subtilest/mrj- of 7iature} 

Shakespeare has this precise collocation of words: 

A ruined piece of mi/ u re. ^ 

We also find: 

When nature framed this piece? 

Thy mother was a. piece of virtue.'^ 

As pretty s. piece of flesh? 

Oh, pardon me, thou bleeding //Vcd' of earth}^ 

Bacon also says: 

The tiodiest piece of justice." 

While Shakespeare says: 

What a piece of work is man ; 
How 7iof>le in reason. '- 

Bacon says: 

A miracle of time.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

O miracle of men.''* 



' Wisdom of the Ancients — Prometheus. 8 Tempest, i., 2. 

2 3d Henry 11'., i, 2. ^ Much Ado ahout Nothing, iv, 2. 

^ Natiiral History, cent. ii. ^° Jiitius Ciesar, iii, i. 

4 Ibid. " Charge against St. Jnhii. 

5 Ibid. '^ Hamlet, ii, 2. 

* Lear, iv, 6. '^ Of a Jl'ar with Spain. 

'' Pericles, iv, 3. " 2d Henry IV., ii, 3. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. ^Ol 

Bacon: 

The fire maketh them soft and tender} 

Shakespeare: 

The soft and tender fork of a poor worm.* 

Beneath your soft and tender breeding.-' 
As soft and tender flattery.'* 

Here again it is identity not alone of a word, but of a phrase. 
Bacon says: 

Where a rainbow seemeth to hang over or to touch, there breatheth forth a 
sweet smell. ^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Breathing to his breathless excellence 
The incense of a vow.*' 

'Tis her breathinz 
That /<vy;/W(i'j- the chamber thus.' 

We find both Shakespeare and Bacon using the unusual word 
disclose for hatch. 
Bacon says: 

The ostrich layeth her egsfs under the sand, where the heat of the sun discloseth 
them.- 

Shakespeare: 

Anon, as patient as the female dove, 
When that her golden couplets are disclosed. 
His silence will sit brooding.* 

Bacon speaks of 

The elements and their conjugations, the influences of heaven.'** 

While Shakespeare speaks of 

All the skiey influences}^ 

Bacon says; 

For those smells do . . . rather imio the sense than satiate it." 

While Shakespeare says: 

The air smells ivooingly here.'* 



'^ Natural II istory\ §630. ^KingJoh)i, iv, 3. ^^ Natural History, %i^z. 

"^ Measure yor jMeasure, iii, i. ' Cymbeline, ii, 2. " Measure /or Measure, iii, i. 

2 Twet/tk Night, V, 1. ^ Natural History, §856. ^^ Natural History, §833. 

^ Pericles, i-v,^. ^ Ha»ilet,\, \. ^^ Macbeth, \, 6. 

^ Natural History, §832. 



3o8 



PARALLELISMS. 



Speaking of the smell where the rainbow rests, Bacon says: 

But none are so delicate as the dew of the rainbow.' 

Shakespeare says: 

I have observed the air is dc/icate.^ 
We also have: 

A delicate odor.'' 

Delicate Ariel. •* 



Bacon speaks of 
Shakespeare, of 



The gentle dew.-' 



The gentle fain. 



The v^ 0x6. fantastical is a favorite with both. 
Bacon says: 



Shakespeare says: 



Bacon says: 
Shakespeare says: 



Which showeth a fantastical spirit.' 
Fantastical learning.^ 

/Ligh fantastical.'^ 
A mad, fantastical trick.'" 
A fantastical knave. ' ' 
Telling her fantastical lies.' 

A malign aspect and influence,'* 
Malevolent to you in all aspect s.^^ 



Bacon says: 

So as your wit shall be whetted with conversing with many great wits, and you 
shall have the cream and quintessence of every one of theirs.'* 

Shakespeare says: 

What is this quintessence of dust ?"" 
The quintessence of every sprite.''' 



• Natural History., § 832. 
^Macbeth, i, 6. 

* Pericles, iii, 2. 

* Tempest, i, 2. 

^ Natural History, § 832. 

• Merchant 0/ Venice, iv, i. 
^ Civil Conv. 

^Advancement 0/ Learning, book i. 
9 T%vel/th Night, i, i. 
^'^ Measure /or Measure, iii, 2. 



" As You Like It, iii, 3. 

»2 Othello, ii, i. 

'^^Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. 

>'' 1st Henry IV., \, 2. 

1^ Bacon's Letter to the Earl of Rutland, 

written in the name of the Earl of Essex. 

Life and Works, vol. ii, p. 13. 
^''Hamlet, ii, 2. 
I'^j You Like It, iii, 2. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 309 

Bacon says: 

I find envy beating so strongly upon me.' 

This public envy seemeth to beat chietiy upon principal officers or ministers.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Nor the tide of pomp 
That beats upon the high shore of this world/' 

Bacon says: 

To choose time is to save time; and an unseasonable motion is but heating the 

Shakespeare says: 

Didst thou beat heaven with blessings.* 

Speaking of witchcrafts, dreams and divinations, Bacon says: 

Your Majesty hath . . . with the two clear eyes of religion and natural phil- 
•osophy looked deeply and wisely into these shadows.^ 

And again he says: 

All whatsoever you have or can say in answer hereof are but shadows.' 

While Shakespeare has: 

A dream itself is but a shadow.'^ 

To worship shadows and adore false shapes.* 

Shadows to-night have struck more terror to the soul of Richard.'" 

Hence, horrible shadoic.^^ 

Life's but a walking shado7i>.'^'^ 

Bacon enters in his commonplace-book: 

The jllinera/ wytts, strong /oison yf they be not corrected.'^ 
Shakespeare has: 

The thought doth, like a. /oisonons mineral, gnaw my inwards.'"* 

Bacon says: 

Fullness and swe/lings of the heart.'"' 

Bacon to Queen Elizabeth — Li/c '^ /faiiitct,'n, 2. 

and IVoris, vol. ii, p. 160. " Two Gentlemen 0/ I'erona, iv, 2, 

^ Essay 0/ Eitzy. ^0 Richard III., v, 3. 

^ Henry y., iv, i. " Macbeth, iii, 4. 

■• Essay Of Despatch. 1* Ibid., v, 5. 

^ 2d He^try IV., 1,3. " Promiis, § 1403, p. 454. 

* .-Xdvancement 0/ Learning, book ii. '< Othello, ii, i. 

'' Speech at Trial of Essex. '^ Essay Of Friendship. 



) PARALLELISMS. 

Shakespeare says: 

Malice of thj' swelling heart} 

Their swelling griefs.' 

The swelling act of the imperial scene. •* 

Bacon says: 

The most Imse, bloody and envious persons."* 

Shakespeare says: 

Of base and bloody insurrection.^ 

Bacon: 

Matters of no use or mo//ietil." 
Shakespeare: 

Enterprises of great pith and motnent} 

In both we have the word sovereign applied to medicines. 
Bacon: 

Sovereign medicines for the mind." 

Shakespeare: 

The sovereign st thing on earth 

Was parmaceti for an inward bruise.'' 

In his letter of submission to Parliament, Bacon says; 

This is the beginning of -a golden world. 

Shakespeare, in The Tempest, says: 

I would with such perfection govern, sir, 
To excel \hQ golden age.'" 
In {oxxi\^x golden days." 
Golden times.'*' 

Bacon says: 

This passion [love], which losetli not only other things, but itself}^ 

Shakespeare says: 

A loan oft lose/li both itself and friend.''' 

Bacon: 

A kindly and pleasant sleep. '^ 
Shakespeare: 

Frosty but kindly}^ 



' 1st Henry 17., iii, i. " ist Henry IV., i, 3. 

''■3d Henry /'/., iv, 8. '"Act ii, scene i. 

3 Macbeth, i, 3. ^'^ 3d Henry VI., iii, 3. 

^ Advancement 0/ Learning, book 1. ^"^id Henry IV., v, 3. 

■■' -zd Henry IV., iv, i. " Essay O/Lotc. 

" Advancetncnt 0/ Lcarnittg, book i. ''' Hamlet, i, 3. 

' Hamlet, iii, i. '^^Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii.. 

* Adliancemcnt 0/ Learning, book i. '^ As ] 'on Like It, ii, 3, 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 311 

Bacon says: 

The quality of health and strength.' 

Shakespeare says: 

The quality of mercy is not strained.* 

The quality of the flesh." 

t 

The quality of her passion. '' 

Bacon says: 

The states of Italy be like little quillets of freehold.^ 
And he speaks of 

A quiddity of the common law." 
Hamlet says: 

Where be his quiddcts now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures.' 

Bacon speaks of having one's mind 

Concentric with the orb of the universe. 
Shakespeare says: 

His fame folds in this orb o' the earth,* 

Bacon refers to 

The top of . . . workmanship.' 
The top of human desires.'" 
The /('/ of all worldly bliss." 
Shakespeare refers to 

The top of sovereignty.'* 
The /('/ of judgment.'^ 
The top of all design.''* 

On the other hand, Bacon says: 

He might have known the bottom of his dangrr.^^ 
Shakespeare says: 

The bottom of my place. ^^ 

' Bacon's Letter to the Earl of Rutland, * Corialanus, v, 5. 

written in the name of the Earl of " Prayer. 

Essex — Life and ]Vo7-/cs, vol. ii, p. 16. '° Advancement of Learning. 

"^Merchant 0/ Venice, iv, i. " History 0/ Henry VII. 

' Titnon 0/ Athens, iv, 3. '^'^ Macbeth, iv, i. 

* A ntony and Cleopatra, v. 1 . •' Measure /or Measure, ii, 2. 

* Discourse in Praise of the Queen— ^^ Antony and Cleo/<ati-a,v, v. 

Life and Works. ^^ History of Henry I'H. 

^Arraignment. ^^ Measure for Measure, i, i. 

''Hamlet, v, i. 



112 



PARALLELISMS. 

The bottom of your pu7-pose} 
The very bottom of my soul.'- 
Searches to the bottom of the ivorst.^ 



Bacon has: 



Actions of great peril and motion."' 
Shakespeare has: 

Enterprises of great pith and moment." 

Bacon speaks of 

The abuses of the times.^ 

Shakespeare speaks of 

The poor abuses of the times.'' 

Here the identity is not in a word, but in a series of words. 

Bacon says: 

I will shoot my foot's bolt since you will have it so.* 
Shakespeare says: 

AfooTs bolt is soon shot.'' 
According to ihtt fool's bolt, sir.'" 

Bacon expresses the idea of the mind being in a state of rest or 
peace by the words, " The mind is free,'' as contradistinguished 
from " the mind is agitated." " 

Shakespeare uses the same expression: 

When the mind's y"nv 
The body's delicate.'- 

The doctor refers to Lady Macbeth's mental agony, expressed 
even in sleep, as "this slumbery agitation." 

Bacon says: 

In the midst of the greatest -ccnlderness of ivaters.'^^ 

Shakespeare has: 

Environed with a ii.'ilder)iess of sea. ^* 

1 .Alt's Well that Ends Well, iii, 7. 8 Letter to the Earl of Essex, 1598. 

'^ Henry V., ii, 2. ^ Henry I'., iil, 7. 

^ Troilus and Cressida, ii, 2. '" As I'ou Like It, v, 4. 

^ Speech in Parliament, 39 Elizabeth. . " Novujn Organum. 

^Hamlet, iii, 1. ^"^ Lear, iii, 4. 

'' Letter to the King. " New Atlantis. 

' 1st Henry //'., 1, 2. '^ Titus Andronicus, iii, i. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 313 

And again: 

A ivilderness of monkeys} 

A wihienu'ss 0/ tigers ^ 

Bacon says, in a speech in Parliament: 

This e/oud still hangs over the House. ^ 

Shakespeare has: 

And all the clouds that lowered upon our House. 

Bacon speaks of 

Any expert minister oi nature.* 

Shakespeare says: 

Angels and ministers of grace. ° 

That familiar but curious expression used by Mark Antony in 
his speech over the dead body of Caesar can also be traced back to 

Bacon: 

Lend me your ears.^ 

Bacon, describing Orpheus' power over the wild beasts, paints 
them as 

Standing all at a gaze about him, and lend their ears to his music' 

Again Bacon says, referring to the power of music: 

Orpheus drew the woods and moi'ed the very stones to come.^ 

Shakespeare, referring to the power of eloquence, says that it 

Should move 
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny." 

Bacon says: 

The nature of the vulgar is always swollen and malignant}^ 
Shakespeare speaks of 

The malice of my jTC^Z/m^ heart." 

Bacon says: 

With an iindaiDitcd 'ax\A bold spirit}'- 

Shakespeare speaks of an 

Undaunted spirit in a dying breast.''' 

'^ Merchant 0/ Venice, III, z. *Ibid. 

"^ Titus Andronicus, iii, i. ^Julius Ccesar, iii, 2. 

3 Speech about Undertakers. •" IVisdom o/the Ancients. 

■• IVisdoni 0/ the Ancients — Proteus. " Titits Andronicus, v, 3. 

^ Ha}nlety\, i,. ^- Wisdom 0/ ilie Ancients — Sphynx, 

^Julitis Ctesar, iii, 2. ^^ isi Henry /'/., ill, 2. 

■^ Wisdom 0/ the A ncients. 



3 1 4 PA RA LLELISMS. 

The phrase "mortal men" is a favorite with both. Bacon says: 

Ravish and rap mortal men} 

Shakespeare says: 

Tush, man, mortal nu-ii, mortal men} 
O momentary grace of mortal meti.'^ 

Bacon says: 

The state of man} 

Shakespeare says: 

The state of man} 

Bacon speaks of 

The vapors of ambition.'' 

Shakespeare speaks of 

The vapor of our valor.'' 
The vapor of my glory.* 

Bacon says: 

She was most affectionate of her kindred, even unto faction.^ 
Shakespeare says: 

And drove great Mars to faction}^ 

We find Bacon using the word engine for a device, a stratagem.. 
Speaking of the Lambert Simnell conspiracy to dethrone King 
Henry VII., he says: 

And thus delivered of this so strange an engine, and new invention of fortune. '•• 

lago says to Roderigo: 

Take me from this world with treachery and devise engines for my life.'"'' 

Bacon says: 

Whereupon the meaner sort routed together.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Choked with ambition of the meaner sort}* 
Cheering a rouf of rebels. '^ 
All is on the roiit}^ 



» Wisdom of the A ncients — Sphyn.r. * History of Henry VH. 

^ 1st Henry IV., iv. 2. "* Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. 

3 Richard ///., iii, 4. ' > History of Henry I '//. 

* Wisdom of the Ancients — Prom. ''■' Othello, iv, 2. 

^Julius Casar, ii, i. ^^ History of Henry VH. 

^ History of Henry VH. ^* 1st Henry VI., ii, 5. 

' Henry V., iv, 2. ^^ 2d Henry II '., iv, 2. 

n Richard HI., iii, 7. ^^ 2d Henry VI., v, 2. 



IDEN TIC A L EXPKE SSWNS. 



315 



Bacon says: 



And such superficial speculations they have; like pros/ectiru's, that show things 
inward, when they are hxxx. paintings.^ 

The same figure occurs in Shakespeare: 

Divides one thing entire to twenty objects, 
hike Jii-rspfftiz't's, which rightly gazed upon 
Show nothing but confusion ; eyed awry 
Distinguish form.- 

And Bacon, in describing a rebellion in Scotland against King 

James III., tells that the rebels captured the King's son — Prince 

James — and used him 

To shadow their rebellion, and to be the titular and pahttcd head of those 
arms.-'' 

This is a very peculiar expression, and reminds us of Lady Mac- 

beth's words: 

'Tis the eye of childhood 
That fears -a painted Ae\\\.^ 

And again Shakespeare says: 

Men are but gilded loam ov painted c\a.y.^ 

Than is the deed to my most /><7/«/<v/ word.* 

Bacon says: 

He raised up the ghost of Richard ... to uui/k and vex the King.'' 
Shakespeare says: 

Thy father's spirit. 
Doomed for a certain term to 'u'alk the night.** 

-Spirits oft 7c<a/k in death.'' 

Bacon says: 

The news thereof came blnzing and thundering over into England, that the 
Duke of York was sure alive.'" 

Shakespeare says: 

What act 
That roars so loud and tliunders in the index ?" 

He came in thunder: his celestial breath 
Was sulphurous to smell.'- 

Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?'^ 

'^ Sylva Sylvaruin. "f/ajiiici, iii, i. ^'' History 0/ Henry I'll. 

* Richard II., ii, 2. ' History 0/ Henry I '//. ' ' Hamlet, iii, 4. 

3 History of Henry 1 7/. f' //am/et, i, 5. '^ Cymbeline, V, 4. 

^ Macbeth, ii, 2. ^ Ibid., i, i. " King John, iii, i. 
'^ I\! chard II., i, i. 



.3i6 



PARALLELISMS. 

The fierce blaze of riot.' 
The blaze of youth. ** 
Every blazing star.* 

Bacon says: 

A spici' of madness.'* 

Shakespeare says; 

This spice of your hypocrisy.^ 

Bacon speaks of 

Our sea-'walh and good shipping." 

Shakespeare describes England as 
Our sea-walled ^zxA^n." 

The word pregnant, signifying full of consequence or meaning, 
is a common one with both writers. Bacon says: 

Many circumstances did feed the ambition of Charles viixh. pregnant and appar- 
.ent hopes of success.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee.* 

Pi-egnant instruments of wealth.'" 

Were v&ry pregnant and potential spurs." 

Bacon says: 

His people were hot upon the biisiness.^^ 

Shakespeare says: 

It is a business of some lieat.^^ 

Bacon says, speaking of old age: 

He promised himself money, lionor, friends and peace in the end.''* 
Shakespeare says: 

.\nd that which should accompany old age. 
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
I must not look to have.'* 



^ Richant Il.,\\, \. « Speech on Subsidy. " Z,<?a;-, ii, i. 

■"^AlVs Welltlint l-linis Well, v, j. ' Richard 11., iii, 4- '^'^ History of Henry VH. 

^ Ibid., i. 3. ** History of Henry I '11. "^ Othello, i, 2. 

< Of War Ttiith Spain. " Hamlet, iii, 2. '* History 0/ Henry I'll. 

^ Henry VHL, ii, 3. ' '" Pericles, iv, Gower. '^ Macbeth, v, 3. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. ^17 

Bacon says: 

This bred a decay of people.' 

Shakespeare speaks of 

Decayed vn^x\.'' 

Bacon says: 

Divers things that Vi&x& predominant in the King's nature.'^ 

Macbeth says to the murderers: 

Do you find 
Your patience %o predominant in your nature?* 

Bacon says: 

As if he had heard the news of some strange and fearful prodigy* 
Shakespeare says: 

A prodigy of fear and a portent 
Of broached mischief to the unborn times." 

Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy.'' 

Bacon says: 

Turned law and justice into 7twrniwood.^ 
Shakespeare says: 

Weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain.* 

Bacon says: 

His ambition was so exorbitant and unbounded.^" 

And again: 

Being a man of stomach, and hardened by his former troubles, he refused to» 
pay a mite." 

God seeth that we have unbridled stoiiiae/is.'^''' 

While in Shakespeare we have the vastly ambitious Wolsey 
referred to as 

A man of unbounded stomach.^" 

Bacon says: 

As for her memory, it hath gotten such life, /;/ the mouths and hearts of men, 
as that envy, being put out by her death, etc.'* 

» History of Henry VII. « ist Henry //'., v, i. n Ibid. 

* Comedy of Errors, iv, 3. ^ Richard II., ii, 2. 12 Letter to Lord Coke. 
3 History of Henry VII. e History of Henry J'll. '3 Henry VIII., iv, 2. 

* Macbeth, iii, i. » Lo7'e's Labor Lost, v, 2. " Felic. Queen Elizaln-th, 
6 History of Henry VII. 1 » History of Henry VII. 



3i8 



PARALLELISMS. 



Shakespeare says: 

So shall thou live — such power hath my pen — 

Where breath most breathes, even in tlw iitoiiths of men^ 

Bacon says: 

Vain pontp and outward shows of power.'-' 

Shakespeare says: 

]'ain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye.-' 



In both the thought of retirement is expressed in the word cell 
eferring to t 
Bacon savs: 



referring to the monastic cells. 



Again: 



The cells of gross and solitary monks/ 

For it was lime for me to go to a cell.'-' 
It were a pretty cell for my fortune.* 

In Shakespeare we have: 

Nor that I am much better 
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell. 
And thy no greater father.' 

O proud death! 
What feast is forward in thine eternal cell.*' 

Bacon says: 

The spark that first kindled such fire and combustion. ''' 
And again he says: 

The King chose rather not tt satisfy than to kindle coals.^'* 

Shakespeare has: 

Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars." 

Constance would not cease 
Till she had kindled France and all the world.'-' 

For kindling such combustion in the state.'' 

As dry combustions matter is to fire.''' 

Bacon says: 

If the rules and maxims of law, in the first raising of tenures in capite, be 
weakened, this nips t/ie Jloiver in the bnd.^'' 



' Sonnet. 

"^ Char. Julius Cwsar. 

3 Henry VIII., iii, 2. 

^ AdTancement 0/ Learning. 

5 Letter. 

«Ibid. 

' Tempest, i, 2. 

* l/amtet, V, 2. 



' History 0/ Henry VH. 
""Ibid. 

" King John, v, 2. 
12 Ibid., i, I. 
■^^ Henry VIII.. v, 3. 
1^ Venus and Adonis. 
'* Argument, Law's Case of Tenures. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 319 

Shakespeare says: 

Nip not the gaudy hlossonts of your love.' 
N'ips his root.-' 

Bacon, after his downfall, speaks of 

This hasc court of adversity, where scarce any will be seen stirring. 

Shakespeare puts the same expression into the mouth of Rich- 
ard II. after his downfall: 

In the base court f Base court, where kings grow base, 
To come at traitors' calls and do them grace. 
In the base court, come down.^ 

Bacon says: 

He strikes terror ^ 

Shakespeare says: 

And strike such terror X.o his enemies.^ 

Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard. ^ 

Bacon says: 

It is greatness in a man to be the care of the higher powers.'' 
In Shakespeare we have: 

Arming myself with patience 
To stay the providence of some high poivers 
That govern us below.* 

In his letter to Sir Humphrey May, 1625, speaking of his not 
having received his pardon, Bacon says: 

I deserve not to be the onlv outcast. 
While Shakespeare has: 

I all alone bewail my outcast state.' 
Bacon says: 

And successions to great place will wax vile; and then his Majesty's preroga- 
tive goeth do7i'ii the -rviud.^'^ 

' Lovers Labor Lost, v, 2. ' Richard IIL, v, 2. 

"^ Henry VIII., iii, 2. 'Essay Of Fortune. 

^ Richard II., iii, 3. ^Julius Co'sar, v, i. 

■• Bacon's Letter to Sir Foulke Greville ^ Sonnet. 

-—Life and Works, vol. ii, p. 24. '"Letter relating to Lord Coke. 
' 1st Henry VI., ii, 3. 



320 



PARALLELISMS. 



Othello says: 

If I do prove her haggard, 
Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, 
I'd whistle her off, and let her dozvn the luind. 
To prey at fortune.' 



And here we have a singular parallelism occurring in connection 

with the same sentence. 

Bacon says: 

For in consent, where tongue-strings and not heart-strings make the music that 
harmony may end in discord. 

Shakespeare has: 

Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings} 

He grieves my very heart-stnugs.^ 



Also: 



Shakespeare says: 

My love 
Was builded far from accident.^ 

Mr. J. T. Cobb points a similar expression in Bacon: 

Another precept of this knowledge is not to engage a man's self too peremp- 
torily in anything, though it seem not liable to accident.^ 

The wheel was, curiously enough, a favorite image with both. 
Bacon says: 

My mind doth not move on the whech of profit.'' 

The ivheels of his mind keep away with the wheels of his fortune.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

Then can I set the world on wheels.'^ 

Let go thy hold, when a great 7uheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck 
with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after.* 



Bacon says: 

It is a rule, that whatsoevr science is not consonant to presuppositions, must 
pray in aid of similitudes. '° 

Shakespeare says: 

A conqueror that will/n/j in aid for kindness, 
Where he for grace is kneeled to." 



1 Othello, iii, 3. 

2 Ibid., iii, 2. 

5 Two Gentlemen 0/ Verona, iv, i. 
■• Sonnet c.\xiv. 
•'' Advancement 0/ Learning. 
« Letter. 



' Essay Of Fortune. 

8 T1V0 Gentlemen of Verona, iii, 1. 

^ Lear, ii, 4. 

'" Advancetnent 0/ Learning. 
' ' A ntony and Cleopatra, v, 2. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 



321 



Franklin Fiske Heard says: 



Praying in aid is a law term, used for a petition made in a court of justice for 
the calling in of help from another, that hath an interest in the cause in question.' 

How came the non-lawyer, Shakspere, to put this English law- 
phrase into a Roman play ? 

J. T. Cobb draws attention to this parallelism. 

Bacon says: 

For the poets feigned that Orpheus . . . did call and assemble the beasts and 
birds ... to stand about him, as in a theater; and soon after called likewise the 
stones and woods to remove.* 

Shakespeare says: 

Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods.^ 

Bacon says: 

Let him commend his inventions, not ambitiously or spitefully, but first in a 
manner most vivid and fresh, that is most fortified against the injuries of time.^ 

Shakespeare says, in one of the sonnets: 

Injurious time, blunt thou the lion's paws. 

Bacon says: 

A man that hath no virtue in himself.* 

Shakespeare says: 

The man that hath no music in his soul.** 

Here the resemblance is not in the words, but in the rhythm 

and balance of the sentence. 

Bacon speaks of 

Justice mixed with mercy.'' 

Says Shakespeare: 

Let meiry season justice.^ 

Bacon says: 

These winds of rumors could not be cotmnanded down.* 

Shakespeare says: 

Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges, 
Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast 
Upon the ivinds command, bind them in brass.'" 

' Shakespeare as a Lawyer, p. 82. * Merchant of Venice, v, 1. 

" The Plantaiion 0/ Ireland. 'Proceedings York House. 

' Merchant 0/ I'entce, v, i. 8 ;\[eychant 0/ I 'enice. 

^ Interpretation 0/ Nature. * Letter in name of Anthony Bacon to Essex, i6cc. 

s Essay <7/ ^«7'^. ^^ Pericles, \\\, x. 



322 PARALLELISMS. 

But it may be urged, by tlie unbeliever, that there is a vast body 
of the Shakespearean writings, and a still vaster body of Bacon's 
productions; and that it is easy for an ingenious mind, having 
these ample fields to range over, to find a multitude of similarities. 
In reply to this, I will cite a number of quotations from Bacon's 
essay Of Death., the shorter essay on that subject, not published 
until after his death, and which is found in the first volume of Basil 
Montagu's edition of Bacon s Works, on pages 131, 132 and 133. It 
is a small essay, comprising about two pages of large type, and does 
not exceed in all fifteen hundred words. And yet I find hundreds 
of instances, in this short space, where the expressions in this essay 
are paralleled in the Plays. Let me give you a few of the most 
striking examples. 

Bacon, arguing that men should be content to die, says: 

And as others have given place to us, so we must in the end give place to 
others. 

Shakespeare says, speaking of death: 

Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home, 
I quickly were dissolved from my hive, 
To give some laborers room} 

We find a kindred thought in Hamlet: 

But, you must know, your father lost a father, 
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound, 
In filial obligation, for some term 
To do obsequious sorrow.'^ 

Bacon says: 

God sends men into this wretched theater, where being arrived, their first lan- 
guage is that of mourning. 

This comparison of life and the w^orld to a theater, and a 
melancholy theater, runs all through Shakespeare: 

This wide and universal theater 
Presents more Tw^y«/ pageants.* 

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; 
A stage where every man must play his part, 
And mine a sad ornt.'^ 

All the world's a stage. 



And all the men and women merely pla3'ers 



6 



'^AlVs Well that Ends Well, i, 2. ^ As You Like It, ii, 7. ^ As You Like It, i;, 7. 

"^Hamlet, i, 2. * Merchant of Venice, i, i. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 323 

But let us look a little farther into this expression of Bacon. 

God sends men headlonjj; into this wretched theater, where being arrived, their 
Jirst language is that of moiiriiiug. 

In Shakespeare we have precisely the same thought: 

When we are born we cry that we are come 
To this great stage of fools.' 

Thou knowest the first time that we smell the air 
We wawl and rn'.- 

We came crying hither.'' 

The word wretched, here applied by Bacon to the theater, is a 
favorite one with Shakespeare: 

A Ti'r<7(-//i-(/ soul l)ruised with adversity.'' 

Art thou so bare and full of ivretchedness. 
And fear'st to die ? '" 

To see ivretchedness o'ercharged." 

Bacon says: 

I compare men to the Indian fig-tree, which, being ripened to his full height, is 
said to decline his branches down to the earth. 

Says Shakespeare: 

They arc not kind; 
And nature, as it grows again towards earth, 
Is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy.'' 

Bacon says: 

Man is made ripe for death. 

We turn to Shakespeare and we have: 

So from hour to hour we ripe and rife. 

And then from hour to hour we rot and rot.* 

Men must endure 
Their going hence, even as their coming hither; 
Ripeness is all.^ 

Bacon continues: 

He is sowed again in his mother the earth. 

Shakespeare says: 

Where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth ?^^ 

' Lear, iv, 6. ^ Romeo and Juliet, V, i. ^ As You Like It, ii, 7. 

■Ibid. ^ Midsuiinncr Nighf s Dream, X, 1. ^ Lear,\,i. 

••Ibid. ' Titus Andronicus, ii, 2. ^^ As You Like It, \, -2. 

* Comedy 0/ Errors, ii, i. 



^2 4 PARALLELISMS. 

Bacon says: 

So man, having derived his beinjf from the earth, first lives the life of a tree, 
drawing his noiirishnicnt as a plant. 

We have a kindred, but not identical, thought in Shakespeare: 

Pericles. How durst thy tongue move anger to our face ? 
Helicaniis. How dare the plants look up to heaven, from whence 
They have their noitrisJnnent? 

The eighth paragraph of the essay Of Death is so beautiful,, 
pathetic and poetical, and has withal so much of the true Shake- 
spearean ring about it, that I quote it entire, notwithstanding the 
fact that I have made use of part of it heretofore: 

Death arrives gracious only to such as sit in darkness, or lie heavy-burdened 
with grief and irons; to the poor Christian that sits bound in the galley; to de- 
spairful widows, pensive prisoners and deposed kings; to them whose fortunes run 
back and whose spirits mutiny: unto such death is a redeemer, and the grave a 
place for retiredness and rest. 

These wait upon the shore of Death and waft unto him to draw near, wishing 
above all others to see his star, that they might be led to his place, wooing the 
remorseless sisters to wind down the watch of their life, and to break them off 
before the hour. 

What a mass of metaphors is here ! Fortune running backward. 

spirits mutinying; despairful widows and deposed kings waiting on 

the shores of death, beckoning to him, watching for his star, wooing 

the remorseless sisters to wind down the watch of their life, and 

break them off before the hour ? And how many suggestions are in 

all this of Shakespeare ? In the word gracious we are reminded of: 

There was not such a. gracious creature born.' 
So hallowed and so o-raciotts is the time.'^ 

The association of sitting with sorrow is common in Shake- 
speare: 

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, 

But cheerly seek how to reiress their harms.'' 

Sittin^'- on a bank. 
Weeping against the king, my father's, loss.'' • 

Here can I sit alone, unseen of any, 

And to the nightingale's complaining notes 

Tune my distresses, and record my rcw.f.^ 

Let us sit upon the ground 
And tell sad stories of the death of kings — 
How some have been deposed, some slain in war.* 

' King Johiu ill, 4. ^ Sd Henry VI., v, 4. ^ Two Gentlemen 0/ Verona, v, 4' 

"^Hamlet, i, i. ■* Tempest, i, 2. *■ Richard II., iii, 2. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 325 

Sit thee (iown, sornno.^ 

Woe doth the heavier sit 
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.* 

And when we find Oiiecn Constance, in King /oh/i, 

Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears; 
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears; 
A woman naturally born to fears, ^ 

crying out in her despair: 

Here I and sorrows sit; 
Here is my throne, let kings come bow to it, 

we seem to read again the words of Bacon: 

Death arrives gracious only to such as sit in darkness, ... to despairful 
widows, pensive prisoners and deposed kings. 

And in Shakespeare we have another deposed ki tig saying: 

Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs, 
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes, 
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.'* 

And another, a deposed queen, wafts to Death to come and take 
her away, and cries out: 

Where art thou, Death? 

Come hither, come ! come, come, and take a queen 

Worth many babes and beggars.* 

Says Bacon: 

To them whose fortunes run back. 

Shakespeare says: 

The fated sky 
Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull 
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.* 

My fortune runs against the bias.' 

Says Bacon: 

Whose spirits mutiny. 

This peculiar metaphor is commf)n in Shakespeare: 

Where will doth ?iiuti>iv with wit's regard.** 

There is a mutiny in his mind.' 

That should move 
The stones of Rome to rise and /nutinv.^^' 

My very hairs do niutiiiy.^^ 

' Love' s Labor Lost, i, i. ^ A ntony and Cleopatra^ v, 2. ' Henry I III,, iii, 2. 

'^ Richard I L, i, 3. ^Julius Ctrsar, i, 2. ^"Julius C'iPSdr, iii, 2. 

^ King John, iii, i. ' Richard //., iii, 4. " .Xntony and Cleopatra, iii, 2. 

■" Richard IL, iii, :_.. 1* Jbid., ii, t. 



326 PARALLELISMS. 

Bacon says: 

Unto such death is a irdcenier. 

The sick King Edward IV., nigh unto death, says: 

I every day expect an embassage 

From my Redeemer to redeem me hence.' 

Bacon says: 

And the grave a place of ret i redness and rest. 

Shakespeare says: 

That their souls 

May make a peaceful and a sweet retire.^ 
Again : 

His new kingdom of perpetual rest.^ 

Oh, here 
Will I set up my everlasting rest.* 

Says Bacon: 

Wooing the remorseless sisters to wind down the watch of their life, and to 
break them off before the hour. 

Wooing is a favorite word with Shakespeare, and applied, as 

here, in a peculiar sense. 

That 'cvod'd the slimy bottom of the deep. 

And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.° 

More inconstant than the wind which luoos 
Even now the frozen bosom of the north.® 

The heavens' breath 
Smells wooingly here.'' 

Says Bacon: 

To wind down the watch of their life. 

Says Shakespeare: 

He is winding up the watch of his wit.** 

This is indeed an odd comparison — the watch of his life, the 
watch of his wit. 

Bacon says: 

But death is a doleful messenger to a usurer, and fate untimely cuts t/ieii- 
thread. 

Shakespeare has: 

Let not Bardolph's vital thread be eiit.^ 

' Richard III., ii, i. ■* Romeo and Juliet, v, 3. ' Macbeth, i, 6. 

^ Henry /'., iv, 3. * Ibid., i, 4. " Tcnifiest, ii, i. 

' Richard III., ii, 2. * Romeo and Juliet, i, 4. " Henry V., iii, 6. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 327 

Had not churchmen prayed, 
His thread of life had not so soon decayed.' 

Till the destinies do cut his thread oi life.'- 

In the same paragraph Bacon alludes to the remorseless sisters^ 

and here we have: . 

O fates ! come, come. 

Cut thread and thrum . . . 

Oh, sisters three, 

Come, come, to me. 
With hands as pale as milk; 

Lay them in gore, 

Since you have shore. 
With shears, his thread oi silk.* 

Here we not only have the three weird sisters of destiny alluded 
to by both writers, but in connection therewith the same expres- 
sion, of cutting the thread of life. 

Bacon says, speaking of death: 

But I consent with Caesar, that the suddenest passage is easiest. 

We are reminded of Cleopatra's studies: 

She hath pursued conclusions infinite 
Of easy ways to die.^ 

Says Bacon: 

Nothing more awakens our resolve and readiness to die than the quieted cou- 
scienee. 

We are reminded of Wolsey: 

I feel within me 
A peace above all earthly dignities, 
A still and quiet couscience.^ 

And again: 

O my Wolsey, 
The quiet of my wounded eanscienee.^ 

Says Bacon: 

Our readiness to die. 

Hamlet associates the same word readiness with death: 
If it be not now, j'et it will come: the readiness is all.^ 

Says Bacon: 

My ambition is not to forefiow the tide. 

^ 1st Henry f'/., i, i. * Aniony'and Cleopatra, v, >. 'Ibid., ii, 2. 

^Pericles, i, 2. ^ Henry I'Hl., iii, 2. '' Hamlet, v, 2, 

' Midsummer Night's Dream, v, 1. 



328 PARALLELISMS. 



Shakespeare says: 



For we must take the current when it serves, 
Or lose our ventures.' 



Bacon says: 



So much of our life as we have already discovered is already dead, . . for 
we die daily. 

In Shakespeare we have: 

The Queen that bore thee, 
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, 
Died eveiy day she lii'ed.'^ 

Bacon says: 

Until we return to onr grandmother, the earth. 

Shakespeare speaks of the earth in the same way: 

At your birth 
Our grandam, earth, having this distemperature, 
In passion shook." 

Bacon says: 

Art thou drowned in security? 

Shakespeare says: 

He hath a sin that often drowns him.'* 

Bacon says: 

There is nothing under heaven, saving a true friend, who cannot be counted 
within the number of moveables. 

This is a strange phrase. We turn to Shakespeare, and we tind 
a similar thought: 

Katharine. I knew you at the first. 

You were a tnoveable. 

Petruchio. Why, what's a movable? 

Katharine. A joint stool."' 

And again: 

Love is not love 
Which alters where it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove.'^ 

/ 
Bacon says: 

They desired to be excused from Death's banquet. 

^Julius Ciesar, iv, 3. '^ 1st Henry II'., iii, i. ' Taming 0/ the Shrevj, ii,i. 

* Macbeth, iv, 3. * Timon 0/ Athens, iii, 5. « Sonnet c.wi. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 329 

Shakespeare says: 

O proud death. 
What feast is forward in thine eternal cell ? ' 

And again: 

O malignant and ill-boding stars ! 

Now thou art come unto a feast of death.'^ 

This is certainly an extraordinary thought — that Death devours 
and feasts upon the living. 

Speaking of death, Bacon further says: 

Looking at the blessings, not the hand that enlarged thitm. 

This is a peculiar expression — that death enlarges and liber- 
ates. We find precisely the same thought in Shakespeare: 

Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries, 
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.' 

Bacon says: 

The soul having shaken off her flesh. 

Shakespeare has it: 

O you mighty gods ! 

This world I do renounce; and in your sights 

Shake patiently my great affliction off.* 

And again: 

What dreams may come, 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.^ 

Bacon continues: 

The soul . . . shows what yi'w^'-^r hath enforced her. 

Here is a strange and unusual expression as applied to God. 
We turn to Shakespeare and we find it repeated: 

The fingers of the powers aboi'e do tune 
The harmony of this peace. ^ 

And we find the word finger repeatedly used by Shakespeare in 
<i figurative sense: 

How the devil luxury, with his potato /f;/^v/-, tickles these two together.^ 

No man's pie is freed 
From his ambitious finger.^ 

^ Mantlet, V , -2, ^Lear,\\,(i. '^ Troilns and Cressida.v,-: . 

^/s( Henry VI., \x , 5. ^Hamlet, iii, i. » Henry T///., i, i. 

^Ibid., ii, 5. ' Cymheline, v, 5. 



330 PARALLELISMS. 

They are not as a pipe for fortune's finger, 
To sound what stop she please.' 

He shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger oi my substance.* 

And the word utter^ as applied to the putting out of music, is 

also found in the same scene: 

These cannot I command to any utterajice of harmony: 
I have not the skill.' 

Bacon says that the soul 

Sometimes takes soil in an imperfect body, and so is slackened from showing 
her wonders; like an excellent viuskian which cannot titter himself upon a defective 
instrument. 

This thought is very poetical. Shakespeare has a similar con- 
ception: 

How sour sweet music is 

When time is broke, and no proportion kept ! 
So is it in the music of our lii'es.* 

The comparison of a man to a musical instrument lies at the 

base of the great scene in Hamlet : 

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play 
upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of 
my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; 
and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make 
it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played upon than a pipe?^ 

Says Bacon: > 

Nor desire any greater place than the front of good opinion. 

Shakespeare has: 

The very head and front of my offending 
Hath this extent, no more.'* 

Says Bacon: 

1 should not be earnest to see the t'-r;//;/^ of my age; that extremity of itself 
being a disease, and a mere return unto infancy. 

Speaking in sonnet Ixxiii of his own age, Shakespeare says: 

In me thou seest the twilight of such day, 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
Which by and by black night doth take away. 

Bacon says: 

The extremity of age. 

'^ Hamlet, ni. 2. ^ /famtet. Hi, 2. •'• //«;«/<•/, iii, 2.. 

2 Merry JViveso/lViniisor, ii, i. * Richard //., v, 5. " Othello, i, 3. 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIOXS. - - i 

Shakespeare has it, speaking of old age: 

Oh I time's extremity. 
Hast thou so cracked and splitted my poor tongue.' 

And again he says: 

The middle of youth thou never knowest, but the extremity of both ends.* 

Says Bacon: 

A mere return unto infancy. 

Shakespeare says: 

Last scene of all. 
That ends this strange, eventful history, 
Is second childishness and mere oblivion.'' 

Says Bacon: 

Mine eyes begin to discharge their watch. 

Shakespeare says: 

Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye.^ 

Says Bacon: 

For a time of perpetual rest. 

Says Shakespeare: 

Like obedient subjects, follow him 
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest} 

I. Conclusions. 

This is certainly a most remarkable series of coincidences of 
thought and expressions; and, as I said before, they occur not in 
the ordinary words of our language, the common bases of speech, 
without which we cannot construct sentences or communicate with 
each other, but in unusual, metaphorical, poetical thoughts; or in 
ordinary words employed in extraordinary and figurative senses. 

Thus it is nothing to find Bacon and Shakespeare using such 
words as day and dead^ but it is very significant when we find both 
writers using them in connection with the same curious and 
abstruse thought, to-wit: that individuals metaphoricalh'' die daily. 
So the use of the word blood by both proves nothing, for they could 
scarcely have written for any length of time without employing it; 
but when we find it used by both authors in the sense of the 

• Cotttedy of Errors, v, i. * Romeo and Juliet, ii, 3, 

' Timon 0/ Athens, iv, 3. * Richard III., li, 2. 

^ As You Like It, ii, 7. 



33- 



PARALLELISMS. 



essential principle of a thing, as the blood of virtue, the blood of 
malice, it is more than a verbal coincidence: it proves an identity 
in the mode of thinking. So the occurrence in both of the words 
death and banquet means nothing; but the expression, a banquet of 
death, a feast of death, is a poetical conception of an unusual char- 
acter. The words soul and shake, and even shuffle, might be found 
in the writings of all Bacon's contemporaries, but we will look in 
vain in any of them, except Shakespeare, for a description of death 
as the shaking off of the flesh, or the shuffling off of the mortal coil, 
to-wit, the flesh. 

To my mind there is even more in these resemblances of modes 
of thought, which indicate the same construction and constitution 
of the mind, and the same way of receiving and digesting and put- 
ting forth a fact, not as a mere bare, dead fact, but enrobed and 
enfleshed in a vital metaphor^ than in the similarity of thoughts, 
such as our crying when we come into the world, and the return of 
man in old age to mere infancy and second childishness; for these 
are things which, if once heard from the stage, might have been 
perpetuated in such a mind as that of Bacon. 

This essay Of Death is entirely Shakespearean. There is the 
same interfusing of original and profound thought with fancy; the 
same welding together of the thing itself and the metaphor for it; 
the same affluence and crowding of ideas; the same compactness and 
condensation of expression; the same forcing of common words into 
new meanings; and above all, the same sense of beauty and poetry. 

Observe, for instance, that comparison of the soul shut up in an 
imperfect body, trying, like an excellent musician, to utter itself 
upon a defective instrument. What could be more beautiful ? See 
the picture of the despairful widows, deposed kings and pensive 
prisoners, who sit in darkness, burdened with grief and irons, on 
the shore of Death, waving their hands to the grim tyrant to draw 
near, watching for the coming of his star, as the wise men looked for 
the coming of the star of Bethlehem, and wooing the remorseless 
sisters three to break them off before the hour. Or note the pathos 
of that comparison (bearing most melancholy application to Bacon's 
own fate) where he says: 

Who can see worse days than he that, while yet living, doth follow at the 
funeral of his own reputation ? 



IDENTICAL EXPRESSIONS. 



zz:^ 



And in the craving for a period of " perpetual rest," which 
shows itself all through this essay, we catch a glimpse of the 
melancholy which overwhelmed the soul of him who cried out,, 
through the mouth of Hamlet: 

Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt. 
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew ! 
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. 

All through the essay it seems to be more than prose. From 
beginning to end it is a inass of imagery: it is poetry without 
rhythm. Like a great bird which as it starts to fly runs for a space 
along the ground, beating the air with its wings and the earth with 
its feet, so in this essay we seem to see the pinions of the poet 
constantly striving to lift him above the barren limitations of 
prose into the blue ether of untrammeled expression. It comes to- 
us like the rude block out of which he had carved an exquisite 
statue full of life and grace, to be inserted perchance in some 
drama, even as we find another marvelous essay on death inter- 
jected into Measure for Measure} 

II. The Style of a Barren Mind. 

As a means of comparison and as an illustration of the wide 
difference between human brains, I insert the following letter from 
Lord Coke, who lived in the same age as Bacon, and was, like him^ 
a lawyer, a statesman, a courtier and a politician. 

Bacon's language overruns with flowers and verdure: it is liter- 
ally buried, obscured and darkened by the very efflorescence of 
his fancy and his imagination. Coke speaks the same English 
tongue in the same period of development, but his thoughts are as 
bare, as hard, as soulless and as homely as an English work-house, 
in the midst of a squalid village-common, a mile distant from a 
flower or a blade of grass. When we read the utterances of the 
two men we are reminded of that amusing scene, depicted by the 
humorous pen of Mark Twain, where Scotty Briggs and the village 
parson carry on a conversation in which neither can understand 
a word the other says, though both speak the same tongue; illus- 
trating that in the same language there may be many dialects 

' Act iii, scene i. 



-, -, , PA RA LLELISMS. 

separated as widely from each other as French from German, and 
depending for their character on the mental constitution of the 
men who use them. The speech of an English "navvy" does not 
differ more from the language of Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur than 
do the writings of Coke from those of Bacon. It will puzzle our 
readers to find a single Shakespeareanism of thought or expression 
in a whole volume of Coke's productions. 

The Humble and Direct Answer to the Last Question Arising upon Bagg's 

Case. 

It was resolved, that to this court of the King's bench belongeth authority not 
only to correct errors in judicial proceedings, but other errors and misdemeanors 
tending to the breach of the peace, or oppression of the subjects, or to the raising 
of faction or other misgovernment: so that no wrong or injury, either public or 
private, can be done, but it shall be reformed and punished by law. 

Being commanded to explain myself concerning these words, and principally 
concerning this word, " misgovernment," — 

I answer that the subject-matter of that case concerned the misgovernment of 
the mayors and other the magistrates cf Plymouth. 

And I intended for the persons !he misgovernment of such inferior magistrates 
for the matters in committing wrong or injury, either public or private, punishable 
bylaw, and therefore the last clause was added, "and so no wrong or injury, 
either public or private, can be done, but it shall be reformed and punished by 
law;" and the rule is: " vcrha inteliigenda sunt sc\iiiidit/n subjectam inah'riam." 

And that they and other corporations might know, that factions and other mis- 
governments amongst them, either by oppression, bribery, unjust disfranchise- 
ments, or other wrong or injury, public or private, ^re to be redressed and punished 
by law, it was so reported. 

But if any scruple remains to clear it, these words may be added, " by inferior 
magistrates," and so the sense shall be by faction or misgovernment of inferior 
magistrates, so as no wrong or injury, etc. 

All which I most humbly submit to your Majesty's princely judgment. 

Edw. Coke. 

Now it may be objected that this paper is upon a dry and grave 
subject, and that Bacon would have written it in much the same 
style. But if the reader will look back at the quotations I have 
made from Bacon, in the foregoing pages, he will find that many 
of them are taken from his law papers and court charges, and his 
weighty philosophical writings, and yet they are fairly alive with 
fancy, metaplior and poetry. 



CHAPTER II. 

IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 

« 

ToJichstone. For al! your writers do consent, that ipse is he; 

Now you are not ifisi\ for I am he. 

U'il/iaiii. Which he, sir? As 'i'ou Lil-c ft, ■;■, I. 

BOTH Bacon and Shakespeare reasoned by analogy. When- 
ever their thoughts encountered an abstruse subject, they 
compared it with one plain and familiar; whenever they sought to 
explain mental and spiritual phenomena, they paralleled them with 
physical phenomena; whenever they would render clear the lofty 
and great, they called up before the mind's vision the humble and 
tlie insignificant. All thoughts ran in parallel lines; no thought 
stood alone. Hence the writings of both are a mass of similes and 
comparisons. 

I. Humble and Base Things Used as Comparisons. 

We have seen that Bacon and his double were both philoso- 
phers, and especially natural philosophers, whose observation took 
in ** the hyssop on the wall, as well as the cedar of Libanus; " and 
when we come to consider their identity of comparisons, we shall 
find in both a tendency to use humble and even disgusting things 
as a basis of metaphor. 

We shall see that Bacon was always '' puttering in physic," and 
we find Shakespeare constantly using medical terms and facts in 
his poetry. 

We find, for instance, that both compared the driving-out of 
evil influences, in the state or mind, to the effect of purgative medi- 
cines. 

Bacon says: 

The King . . . thought ... to proceed with severity against some of the 
principal conspirators here within the realm; thereby to purge the ill humors in 
England.' 

And again: 

Some of the garrison observing this, and having not their minds purged of the 
late ill blood of hostility.^ 

' History of Henry I '//. 2 ibid. 

335 



336 PARALLELISMS. 

And again: 

But as in bodies very corrupt the medicine rather stirreth and exasperateth 
the humor than pii7'gcth it. so some turbulent spirits laid hold of this proceeding 
toward my lord, etc' 

While Shakespeare says; 

I 
Do come with words as medicinal as true; 
Honest as either; to purge him of that htmior 
That presses him from sleep.* 



And again; 

And again: 
And again; 



Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, 
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal.^ 



Would purge the land of these drones. 



And, for the day, confined to fast in fires. 

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature, 

Are burnt and purged away.'' 

Bacon says: 

Sometimes opening the ohstruetious.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Purge the obstructions,'' 

And the same thought occurs in different language. 

Bacon says: 

And so this traitor Essex made his color the scouring of some noblemen and 
counselors from her Majesty's favor. 

In Shakespeare we have: 

What rhubarb, senna, or what pur^ati^e drug 
Will scour i\\G.?,^ English hence?* 

The comparison of men and things to bodily sores is common 
in both — an unusual trait of expression in an elevated mind and a 
poet; but it was part of Bacon's philosophy "that most poor things 
point to rich ends." 

Bacon says: 

Augustus Caesar, out of great indignation against his two daughters and Posthu- 
mus Agrippa, his grandchild, whereof the first two were infamous, and the last 

'Report of Judicial Proceed- ^ Macbeth /\\^ t,. '^ History of Henry I'll. 

ings at York House. * Pericles, ii, i. "> 2d Henry II'., iv, t. 

* irinter^s Tate, ii, 3. ^Hamlet, i, 5. ^Macbeth, V, 3. 



IDENTICAL MErAPIIORS. -37 

otherwise unworthy, would say " that they were not his seed, but some imposthiimes 
that had broken from him."' 

And again he says: 

Should a man have them to be slain by his vassals, as the posthumus of Alex- 
ander the Great was? Or to call them his impostlttiiiws, as Augustus Csesar called 
his?-^ 

While in Shakespeare we have: 

This is the ii>tposthuiiu' of much wealth and peace, 
That //?ri'.?;v/ breaks, and shows no cause without 
Why the man dies.'^ 

And we find precisely the same thought in Bacon: 

He that turneth the humors back and maketh the wound bleed iHicards, ingen- 
dereth malign ulcers and pernicious iniposthmuatioiis.^ 

We have a whole body of comparisons of tilings governmental 
to these ulcers, in their different stages of healing. 

Bacon says: 

We are here to search the wounds of the realm, not to skin them over.' 

Spain having lately, with much difficulty, rather smoothed and skinned over 
than healed and extinguished the commotion of Aragon.* 

Shakespeare says: 

A kind of medicine in itself 
That skins the vice o' the top.^ 

Mother, for love of grace. 
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul. 
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: 
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place ; 
While rank corruption, ininins^ 2\\ within, 
Infects unseen.* 

And even this curious word nii/ii>i,i:; we find in Bacon used in the 

same figurative sense: 

To search and /jiine into that which is not revealed.^ 

And we find this same inward infection referred to in Bacon: 

A profound kind of fallacies, . . . the force whereof is such as it . . . doth 
more generally and inwardly infect and corrupt.'" 

And then we have in both the use of the word canker or cancer 
as a source of comparison: 

^ Af-ophtliegms. 'Observations on a Libel — Life and 
2 Discourse in Praise of the Queen — Life Works, vol. i, p. 162. 

and Works, vol. i, p. 140. ' Measure /or Measure, ii, 2. 

' Hamlet, iv, 4. * Hamlet^ iii, 4. 

* Essay Of Sedition. " Advancement 0/ Learning, book i. 

' Speech in Parliament. '° Ibid., book ii. 



338 J'^'l A' J I. LE LI SMS. 

Bacon: 



Shakespeare: 



The (V7«^fr of epitomes.' 

The cankers of a calm world and a long peace.' 
Banish the canker oi ambitious thoughts." 
This canker of our nature.'* 
This canker, Bolingbroke.'' 

Out of this tendency to dwell upon physical ills, and the cure of 
them, we find both coining a new verb, medicining, or to medicine. 
Bacon: 

The incilici)tini; of the mind." 

Again: 

Let the balm distill everywhere, from your sovereign hands to the medicining 
of any part that complaineth.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

Great griefs, I see, medicine the less.** 

Not poppy, nor mandragora, 
Nor all the drowsy sirups of the world. 
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep, 
Which thou owedst yesterday.* 

We find the same tendency in both to compare physical ills 
with mental ills, the thing tangible with the thing intangible. 
Bacon: 

We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the 
body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind: you may take sarsa to open the 
liver, steel to open the spleen, flour of sulphur for the lungs, castareum for the 
brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart 
griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels and whatsoever lieth upon the heart 
to oppress it}^ 

You shall know what disease your mind'vs, aptest to fall into." 

Good Lord, Madam, how wisely and aptly you can speak and discern of physic 
ministered to the body, and consider not that there is the like occasion of physic 
ministered lo the mind}'^ 

We turn to Shakespeare, and we find him indulging in the same 
kind of comparisons. In Macbeth we have: 

' Advancement op Learning, book ii. ' Cyinbeiine, iv, 2. 

2 1st Henry IV., iv, 2. " Othello, iii, 3. 

5 2d Henry VI., i, 2. '" Essay Of Friendship. 

* Hamlet, v, 2. " Bacon's Letter to the Earl of Rutland, written 

'" 1st Henry IV., i, 3. in the name of the Earl of Essex — Life and 

'° .Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. Works, vol. ii, p. 9. 

' Gesta Crayoru)n — Life and " Apology. 
JVorks, vol. i, p. 33Q. 



IDENTICAL METAFIIORS. y^^^ 

Macbeth. How does your patient, doctor? 
Doctor. Not so sick, my lord. 
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies 
That keep her from her rest. 

Macbeth. Cure her of that: 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased. 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow. 

Raze out the written troubles of the brain; 

And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, ' 

Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 

Which 'weii^hs upon the heart f 

Doctor. Therein the patient 

Must minister to himself.' 

In both these extracts the stoppages and "suffocations" of the 
body are compared to the stuffed condition of the mind and heart; 
in both the heart is thus oppressed by that which lies upon it; in both 
we are told that there is no medicine that can relieve the over- 
charged spirit. 

Malcolm says; 

Be comforted. 
Let's make us tned'cines of our great revenge, 
To cure this deadly grief. ** 

II. The Organs of the Body Used as a Basis of Com- 
parison. 

We turn to another class of comparisons. In both writers we find 
the organs of the body used as a basis of metaphor, just as we have 
seen the "medicining" of the body applied to the state of the 
mind. 

Every reader of Shakespeare remembers that strange expression 

in Richard III.: 

Thus far into the bo7veIs of the land 
Have we marched without impediment.^ 

We find the same comparison often repeated: 

Into the boioe/s of the battle.'' 
The bo7vels of ungrateful Rome.' 
The fatal bowe/s of the deep." 

And we find Bacon employing the same strange metaphor: 

This fable is wise and seems to be taken out of the boioe/s of morality.'^ 

' Macbetli, v, 3. 3 Richard III., V, 2. * Coriolanus, iv, 5. 

5 Ibid., iv, 3. ■> 1st Henry VI., i, i. « Richard III., iii, 4. 

' Wisdom of the Ancients — J 11 no'' s Suitor. 



340 PARALLELISMS. 

If any state be yet free from his factions, erected in the bowels thereof." 
Speaking of the fact that earthquakes affecting a small area 

reach but a short distance into the earth, Bacon observes that. 

where they agitate a wider area, 

We are to suppose that their bases and primitive seats enter deeper into the 
bowels of the earth} 

, This is precisely the expression used by Hotspur: 

Villainous saltpeter dug out of the bowels of the harmless earth} 

And this comparison of the earth to the stomach, and of an 

earthquake to something which disturbs it, we find in Shakespeare: 

Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth 
In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth 
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed 
By the imprisoning of unruly wind 
Within her womb.'* 

And we find the processes of the stomach, in both sets of 
writings, applied to mental operations: 

Shakespeare says: 

How shall we stretch our eye 
When capital crimes, cherued, s^vallowcd and digested. 
Appear before us ?* 

Bacon says: 

Some books are to be tasted, others to be s7uallo2ued, and some few to be 
chewed St.n6. digested} 

In both we find the human body compared to a musical instru- 
ment. 

Bacon says: 

The office of medicine is to tune this curious harp of man's body and reduce it 
to harmony.' 

In Shakespeare, Pericles tells the Princess: 

You're a fair viol, and your sense the strings, 
Who, fingered to make man his lawful music. 
Would draw heaven down and all the gods to hearken.^ 

And the strings of the harp furnish another series of compari- 
sons to both. Bacon says: 

They did strike upon a string that was more dangerous.^ 

' Discourse in Praise of the Queen — Li/e ^ Henry l'., ii, 2. 

and Works, vol. i, p. 137. "Essay Of Studies. 

' Nature 0/ Things. ' Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. 

3 1st Henry /?'., I, 3. " Pericles, i, i. 

*Ibid., iii, 1. '^ History of Henry I'll. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 



341 



And again: 

The King was much moved, . . . because it struck upon that siring which even 
he most fea7-ed} 

And Shakespeare says: 



And again: 



Ilarp not on that string, madam.'-' 

I would 'twere something that would fret the string. 
The master-cord on 's heart.'' 



And the word harping is a favorite with botli. Bacon says: 

This string you cannot harp upon too much."* 
And again: 

Harping upon that which should follow.^ 

And in Shakespeare we have: 

Still harping on my daughter.* 

Harping on what T am. 
Not what he knew I was.' 

Thou hast harped my fear a.v\g\\l.* 



We have the disorders of the body of man also made a source 
of comparison for the disorders of the mind, in the following 
instance. 

Bacon: 

High conceits do sometimes come streaming into the minds and imaginations 
of base persons, especially when they are drunk with news, and talk of the people.* 



Shakespeare; 



Was the hope drunk 
Wherein you dressed yourself?'" 

What ! drunk with choler?" 



Hath our intelligence been drunk' ^'^ 
Here we have drunkenness applied to the affections and emo- 
tions — to the viiiid'xn the one case, to the intelHgence in the other; 
to the imagination in the first instance, to the hope and the temper 

in tlie last. 

We have the joints of the body used by both to express the con- 
dition of public affairs. 



' History 0/ Henry I'll. 

" Richard HI., iv, 4. 

'^ Henry VHI., iii, 2. 

■* Letter to Esse.x, Oct. 4, 1596. 

' Civil Conr. 

•'•Hamlet, ii, -. 



''Antony and Cleopatra, iii, 3. 

"Macbeth, iv, i. 

' History 0/ Henry J '//. 
^»J/acieih, i, 7. 
" /st Henry IV., i, 3. 
'" King' John, iv, 2. 



,i4- 



PARALLELISMS. 



Bacon says: 

We do plainly see in the most countries of Christendom so unsound and 
shaken an estate, as desireth the help of some great person, to set together a,nd 
join again the pieces asunder and out of joints 

In Shakespeare we have Hamlet's exclamation, also applied to 
the condition of the country: 

The time is out of joint — Oh, cursed spite. 
That ever I was born to set it right.' 

We have the body of man made the basis of another compari- 
son. 

Bacon says: 

The very springs and sinews of industry. "* 

We should intercept his [the King of Spain's] treasure, whereby we shall cut 
his sinews.^ 

While vShakespeare says: 

The portion and siiiciv of her fortune.* 

Nay, patience, or we break the sinr^vs of our i)lol.' 

The noble sinews of our power.'' 

We have the same comparison applied to the blood-vessels of 

the body. 

Bacon: 

He could not endure to have trade sick, nor any obstruction to continue in the 
gate-vein which disperseth that blood.* 



Shakespeare: 



The natural goles and alleys of the body.' 

We have in both the comparison of the body of man to a taber- 
nacle or temple in which the soul or mind dwells. 

Bacon says: 

Thus much for the body, which is but the tabernacle of the mind.'" 

Shakespeare says: 

Nothing vile can dwell in such a temple}^ 



' Of the State of Jiurope. 
^ Hamlet^ i, 5. 
' Noz'uin OrganiitiJy book i. 
* Letter to Essex, June, 1596. 
^ Measure for Measure, iii, i. 
'• Iwelfth Night, ii, 5. 



' Henry J'., i, z. 

* History of Henry 1 II. 

" Hamtet, i, 5. 
'" AtlTancetneiit of Learning, book ii. 
" Tempest, i, '.>. 



IDENTICAL METArUOKS. 343 

And again: 

For nature, crescent, does not grow alone 
In thews and bulk; but, as this temple waxes, 
The inward service of the mind and soul 
Grows wide withal.' 

Oh, that deceit should dwell 
In such a gorgeous /(//(Tcc.^ 

Even the clothing which cov^ers the bod^f becomes a medium of 
comparison in both. 
Bacon : 

Behavior seemeth to me as a garment of the ntind.'^ 

This curious idea, of robing the mind in something which shall 

cover or adorn it, is used by Shakespeare: 

With purpose to be dressed in an opinion 
Of wisdom.'' 

And dressed myseM in such humility.'^ 

Was the /tope drunk wherein you (/;vjjW yourself?* 

And the same thought occurs in the following: 

The garment of rebellion.' 

Dashing the garment of this peace.* 

Part of the raiment of the body is used by both as a comparison 
for great things. 
Bacon: 

The motion of the air in great circles, such as are under the girdle 0/ the ivorldy 
Shakespeare says: 

Puck. I'll put a. girdle round about the earth 
In forty minutes.'" 

We have said that both writers were prone to use humble and 
familiar things as a basis of comparison for immaterial and great 
things. We find some instances in the following extracts. 

The blacksmith's shop was well known to both. Bacon says: 
There is shaped a tale in London's forge that beateth apace at this time." 

' Hamleiy i, 3. ' Macbeth^ i, 7. 

' Romeo and Juliet, iii, 2. " 1st Henry II'., v, i. 

' Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. ' Henry VIII. i, i. 

* Merchant of Venice, \, i. * Natural History, § 398. 

^ jst Henry IV., iii, 2. '" Midsummer Niglifs Dream, ii, 2. 

" Letter 10 Lord Howard. 



344 



PA KALLELISMS. 



Shakespeare: 

Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with it, then; shape it. I would not have 
things cool.' 

Here we have in the one case a tale shaped in the forge ; in the 

other a plan is to be shaped in the forge. 

And again we have in Shakespeare: 

In the quick forge and working-house of thought,^ 

I should make very forges of my cheeks, 
That would to cinders burn up modesty.' 

Again we find in Bacon: 

Though it be my fortune to be the anvil upon which these good effects are 
beaten and wrought.'* 

Speaking of Robert Cecil, Bacon says: 

He loved to have all business under the hummer.^ 

And this: 

He stayed for a better hour till the //(//« w^r had wrought and beat the party 
of Britain more pliant.^ 

While in Shakespeare we have: 

I cannot do it, yet I'll hammer it out 
Of my brain.' 

Whereupon this month I have Ijeen hammering.^ 

The refuse left at the bottom of a wine-cask is used by both 
metaphorically. 

Bacon: 

That the [Scotch] King, being in amity with him, and noways provoked, should 
so burn in hatred towards him as to drink the lees and dregs of Perkin's intoxication, 
who was everywhere else detected and discarded.' 

And again Bacon says: 

The memory of King Richard lay like lees in the bottom of men's hearts; and if 
the vessel was but stirred it would come up.'^' 

And Bacon speaks of 

The dregs of this age." 

We turn to Shakespeare and we find: 

He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up 
The lees and dregs of a flat, tamed piece. '^ 

' I\Te7'ry Wives 0/ Windsor^ iv, 2. ' Richard 11,, V, 5. 

' Henry I'., v, cho. " Two Gentlemen of Verona, i, 3. 

' Otliello, iv, 2. ' History 0/ Henry VII. 

^ Letter to the Lords. '° Ibid. 

^Letter to King James, 1612. "Bacon lo Queen Elizabeth — Life and 

^ History 0/ Henry VI /. Works, viil, ii, p. )6o. 

'^ Troi/iis and Cressida, iv, 1. 



Again: 

Again : 
Again: 



IDEM riCA I. MK T. I PNOA'S. 

All is but toys; renown and grace is dead; 
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 
Is left this vault to brag of.' 

Some certain i/r(',4,o of conscience.* 

The dregs of the storm be past.'' 



345 



And the floating refuse which rises to the top of a vessel is also 
used in the same sense by both. 
Bacon speaks of 

The scum of the people* 

Again : 

A rabble and scum of desperate people.^ 

While Shakespeare says : 

A scu/)t of Bretagnes and base knaves. "^ 

Again: 

The filth and scum ot Kent.' 

Again: 

Froth and scum, thou liest.^ 

Another instance of the use of humble and physical things as a 
basis of comparison in the treatment of things intellectual is found 
in the following curious metaphor: 

Bacon: 

He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great or too 
small tasks, . . . and at the first let him practice with helps, as s7vimmers do with 
bladders} 

While Shakespeare has: 

I have ventured, 
Like little wanton boys, that swim on bladders. 
This many summers in a sea of glory.'" 

The people are compared by both to mastiffs. 

Bacon: 

The blood of so many innocents slain within their own harbors and nests by 
the scum of the people, who, like so many mastiffs, were let loose, and heartened 
and even set upon them by the state." 

' Macbeth, ii, 3. 5 History c/ Henry I'll. « Essay Of Nature in Men. 

2 Richard III, i, 4. 9 Richard III., V, 2. '" He7iry I V/I., iii. 2. 

' Tempest, ii, 2. '' 2d Henry VI., iv, 2. " Fetii . Quern E/izahefh. 

* Felic. Queen Elizabeth. ^ Merry U'iveso/ Windsor , i, 1. 



346 PARALLELISMS. 

While Shakespeare says: 

The men do sympathize with their mastiffs, in robustious and rough coming-on.^ 

We will see hereafter how much Bacon loved the pursuit of 
gardening. 
He says: 

He entered into clue consideration how to 'ivceJ out the partakers of ^he former 
rebellion. - 

Again; 

A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably 
water the one and destroy the other.^ 

While Shakespeare has: 

So one by one well 7i>ced them all at last.'' 

And again: 

The caterpillars of the commonwealth, 
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.' 

The mirror is a favorite comparison in Ixjtli sets of writings, as 
usual the thing familiar and physical illustrating the thing 
abstruse and intellectual. 

Bacon says: 

God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or rrlass capable of the image of 
the universal world.- 



Shakespeare: 



Now all the youth of England are on fire, . . 
Following the mirror oi all Christian kings.' 



Bacon : 



That which I have propounded to myself is ... to show you your true shape 
in a glass. ^ 

Shakespeare says of play-acting: 

Whose end both at the first, and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror 
up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very 
age and body of the time his form and pressure.* 

Bacon says: 

If there be a mirror in the world worthy to hold men's eyes, it is that country."" 



' Henry /'., iii, 7. 

^ History of Henry VI J. 

3 Essay O/ Nature in Men. 

* 2d Henry f'/., i, 3. 

•'' Kirhard //., ii, 3. 



* Advancetnent of Learning, book i. 
' Henry I'., ii, cho. 
" Letter to Coke. 
^ //«;«/£■/, iii, 2. 
"• .V,'7(' .it /a litis. 



347 



3 



/DENTICA I. ME TArilORS. 
Shakespeare says: 

The mirror (A all courtesy.' 

He was, indeed, the glass 
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.' 

Here is another humble comparison. 
Bacon: 

He thought it [the outbreak] but a rag or rt-ninant of Bosworth-field. 

Shakespeare says: 

Away ! thou rag, thou quantity, thou rriiiiiaiiL^ 

Here we have both words, rag and remnant, tised figuratively, 
and used in the same order. 
Again: 

Thou rag of honor.* 
Not a rag of money. ^ 

Both writers use the humble habitation of the hog as a mediun-t 
of comparison. 
Bacon: 

Styed M\> in the schools and scholastic cells.' 

Shakespeare: 

And here you sly me 
On this hard rock.' 

Here is a comparison based on the same familiar facts. 
Bacon speaks of 

The wisdom of rats that will he sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall." 

Shakespeare says: 

A rf)tten carcass of a butt, not rigged. 
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast ; the very rats 
Instinctively have quit it."' 

The habits of birds are called into requisition by both writers. 
Bacon says: 

In her withdrawing-chamber the conspiracy against King Richard the Third 
had been hatched ^'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Dire combustion and confused events 
New hatched to the woeful time.'-' 

> Henry /'///., ii, i. ^ Richard III, i, 3. ' Essay Of Wisdom. 

^ 2d Henry IV., ii, 3. '■ Comedy of Errors, iv, 4. '" Tempest, i, 2. 

3 History of Henry VII. ' Natural History. n History of Henry VII^ 

* Taming of the Shreiv, iv, (. ' Tciiif>cst, i, 2. ^"^ Macbeth, ii, 3. 



348 PARALLELISMS. 

And again 



Such things become the hatch and brood of time. 



Bacon says: 



Will you be as a standing pool, that spendeth and choketh his spring within 
itself?^ 

Shakespeare says: 

There are a sort of men whose visages 

Do cream and mantle like a standing pond." 

Even the humble wagon forms a basis of comparison. 
Bacon says: 

This is the axle-tree whereupon I have turned and shall turn.* 

And again Bacon says: 

The poles or axle-tree of heavert, upon which the conversion is accomplished.^ 

Shakespeare has: 

A bond of air strong as the axle-tree 
On which heaven rides.* 

In the following another comparison is drawn from an humble 
source; and here, as in rag and remtiant, not only is the same word 
tised in both, but the same combination of words occtirs. 

Bacon says: 

To reduce learning to certain empty and barren generalities; being but the 
very /rusks and shells of sciences.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

But the shales and husks of men.* v 

Strewed with the husks 
And formless ruin of oblivion.' 

Who can forget Hamlet's exquisite description of the heavens: 

This m&i&siic roof fretted wiVn golden fire.'" 

Few have stopped to ask themselves the meaning of the word 
fretted. We turn to the dictionary and we find no explanation that 
satisfies us. We go to Bacon, to the mind that conceived the 
thought, and we find that it means ornamented by fret-work. 

' 3d Henry IV., iii, i. " Troiliis and Cressida, i, 3. 

- Gesta Grayoruiii — Li/e and II orXw, vol. i, p. 339. ' .IdTancement 0/ Learning, book ii. 

3 Mercliant 0/ Venice, i, i. *" Henry /'., iv, 2. 

■* Letter to Earl of Essex, 1600. " Troiliis and Cressida, iv, 5. 

* Ad-i'ancement 0/ Learning, bonk ii. '" llanilei, ii, 2. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 34^ 

For if that great Work-master had been (jf a human disposition, he would have 
cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and orders, like the /nV.i- in 
the roofs of houses.' 

Here we have a double identity: first, the heavens are compared 
to the roof of a house, or, more properly, the ceiling of a room; and 
secondly, the stars are compared to the fret-work which adorns 
such a ceiling. 

It would be very surprising if all this came out of two separate 
minds. 

In the following we have another instance of two words used 
together in the same comparison. 

Bacon: 

We set j-A/w/j- and seals of our o-wn /wrtj,v,r upon God's creatures and works. ■^ 

Shakespeare makes the nurse say to the black Aaron, bringing 

him his child: 

The empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal. 
And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.* 

And again: 

Nay, he is your brother by the surer side. 
Although my .fca/be stamped u^on his face.* 

Here we have precisely the same thought: Aaron had set "the 
stamp and seal of his own image " on his offspring. 

We find in both the mind of man compared to a fountain. 

Bacon says: 

When the books of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have 
the troubled fountain of a eorrupt heart.^ 

Again : 

He [the King of Spain] hath by all means projected to trouble the waters here.'' 

And again: 

One judicial and exemplar iniquity doth trouble the fountains of justice more 
than many particular injuries passed over by connivance.' 

Pope Alexander . . . was desirous to trouble the waters in Italy.** 

Shakespeare says: 

A woman moved is like a. fountain troubled.^ 

^ Advance»icnt n/ Leariiing^,hoo]!iii. 'Report on Dr. Lope/.' Treason — Li'/e 

* Exper. History. and IVorks, vol. i, p. -275. 

' Titus Andronicus, iv, 2. ' Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii, 

< Ibid. « History 0/ Henry VU. 

* Letter to the King. '•* Taming 0/ the Shrew, \ , 2. 



J50 PARALLELISMS. 

My mind is /;■('///'/<■(/ like a foiinldiii stirred.' 

Hut if he start, 
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.'- 

In both we find the thoughts and emotions of a man compared 
to the coals which continue t(j live, although overwhelmed by mis- 
fortunes which cover them like ashes. 

Bacon says: 

Whilst I live my affection to do you service shall remain quick under the ashes 
of my fortune.' 

And again: 

So that the sparks of my affection shall ever rest quick, under the ashes of my 
fortune, to do you service.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

Pr'ythee go hence, 
Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits, 
Through the ashes of my chance.'' 



Again : 
Again : 



The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out. 
And strew'd repentant aslies on his head.^ 

This late dissension, grown betwixt the peers. 
Burns under feigned ashes of forged love, 
And will at last break out into 2l flame? 



And the expression in the above quotation from Bacon: 
The sparks of my affection, 
is paralleled in Shakespeare: 

Sparks of honor.* 
Sparks of life.' 
Sparks of nature.'" 

We find in both the state or kingdom compared to a ship, and 
the king or ruler to a steersman. 
Bacon says: 

Statesmen and such as sit at the Iielnis of great kingdoms." 

In Shakespeare we find Suffolk promising Queen Margaret the 
control of the kingdom in these words: 

' Troitus and Cress/da, iii, 3. ' King John, iv, 1. 

' Merry Wives 0/ Windsor, v, 5. ' 1st Henry VI., iii, i. 

'■'■ Letter to the Earl of Bristol. " Richard II., v, 6. 

^ Letter to Lord Viscount Falkland. ^ Jutius Ca'sar,\, t,. 

* Antony and Cleopatra, v, 2. '" Cymbetinc, iii, 3; Lear, iii, 7. 

^^ Feiic. Queen Elizabeth. 



And again: 
And again : 



I DEN TIC A L ME TA PHOR S. 

So, one by one, we'll weed them all at last, 
And you yourself shall s/ivr tlic Itappy helm} 

God and King Henry go\-ern England's lu-liit.''- 

A rarer spirit never 
Did steer humanity.^ 



35^ 



We have seen Bacon speaking, in a speech in Parliament, of 
those '■^ viperous natures " that would drive out the people from the 
lands and leave " nothing but a shepherd and his dog." 

We find the same comparison, used in the same sense, in Shake- 
speare: 

Where is this 7'iper 
That would depopulate the city, 
And be every man himself?^ 

The overwhelming infiuence of music on the soul is compared 
by both to a rape or ravishment. 
Bacon says: 

Melodious tunes, so fitting and delighting the ears that heard them, as that it 
ravished and betrayed all passengers. . . . Winged enticements to raijish and 
rape mortal men.* 

While Shakespeare says: 

By this divine air, now is his soul ravished.^ 



And again: 



And again: 



When we, 
Almost with ;w77'j/;^c/ listening, could not find 
His hour of speech a minute.' 

One whom the music of his own vain tongue 
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.** 



We have in both the great power of circumstances compared to 

the rush of a flood of water. 

Bacon : 

In this great de/itge of danger." 

Shakespeare: 

Thy deed inhuman and unnatural 
Provokes this deluf^e most unnatural.'" 

^2dIIenry VI.,'\,i,. '■Much Ado alwiit Notliingyn, ^. 

^Ibid., ii, 3. ■'Henry \-lII., i, 2. 

' Antony and Cleopatra, v, 1. " Love's Labor Lost, i, i. 

^ Coriolaniis, iii, i. " Felic. Queen Elizabeth. 

'" Wisdom o/the Ancients — The Sirens. '" Richard III., i, 2. 



35 2 

Again: 
Again: 

Again: 



PARALLELISMS. 

'Y\\\% flood o{ fortune.' 

And such s^ flood of greatness fell.' 

This great flood of visitors.-' 



In their effort to express great quantity we have both refer- 
ring to the ocean for their metaphors. 

Bacon has: 

He came with such a sea of multitude upon Italy.'* 

A sea of air} 

Shakespeare has precisely the same curious expression: 

A sea of air} 

Bacon also has: 

Vast seas of time.'' 
A sea of quicksilver.* 

Again Bacon says: 

Will turn a sea of baser metal into gold.' 

In Shakespeare the same '"large composition" of the mind 
drives him to seek in the greatest of terrestrial objects a means of 
comparison with the huge subjects which fill his thoughts: 

A sea of joys.'** 

A sea of care." 

Shed seas of tears. '- 

A sea of glory. '^ 

That sea of blood.''* 

A sea of woes.'^ 

We also find in Hamlet : 

A sea of troubles.'* 

This word, thus employed, has been regarded as so peculiar and 
unusual that the commentators for a long time insisted that it was 
a misprint. Even Pope, himself a poet, altered it to read "a siegr 
of troubles;" others would have it ^^ assail of troubles." But we 

I Tivel/th Night., iv, 3. * Titnon 0/ Athens, iv, 2. '' Henry VIII., iii, 2. 

^ 1st Henry IV.,v, i. ' Ad7'ancetnent of Learn- '^'^ Rape o/ Lucrece. 

' Titnon 0/ Athens, i, i. ing, book i. '^ 1st Henry VI., iv, 7. 

■• Apophthegms. * Ibid., book ii. ^^ 3d Henry VI., ii, 5. 

^ .-idfancement oj" Learn- ^ Natural History, %-yi(>. ^^ Tiinon o/" Athens, \, i. 

ing, book ii. '" Pericles, v, i. '* Hamlet, iii, i. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 353 

see that it was a common expression with both Bacon and 
Shakespeare. 

Bacon has also: 

The ocean of philosophy.' 
^ The ocean of history.' 

Shakespeare has: 

An ocean of his tears." 

An ocean of salt tears.* 

Tn the same way the tides of the ocean became the source of 
numerous comparisons. 

The most striking was pointed out some time since h\ Montagu 
and Judge Holmes. Not only is the tide used as a metaphor, but 
it enforces precisely the same idea. 

Bacon: 

In the third place, I set down reputation, because of the peremptory tides 
and currents it hath; which, if they be not taken in their due time, are seldom 
recovered.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 

On such a full sea are we now afloat; 

And we must take the cun-ent when it serves, 

Or lose our ventures.^ 

Bacon and Shakespeare recur very often to this image of the 

tides: 

My Lord Coke floweth according to his own tides, and not according to the 
tides of business.' 

Here "tides of business" is the same thought as "tides of 
affairs" in the foregoing quotation from Shakespeare. 
Bacon again says: 

The tide of any opportunity, . . . the periods and tides of estates.* 

And again: 

Besides the open aids from the Duchess of Burgundy, there wanted not some 
secret tides from Maximilian and Charles.' 

' Ejcper. History. ^Advancement of Leaitting, book ii. 

- Great Instauration. ''Julius Ctssar, iv, 3. 

' Two Gentlemen 0/ Verona, ii, 7. ' Letter to the King, February 25, 1615. 

*Sd Henry I'J., iii, 2. * Letter to Sir Robert Cecil. 

» History 0/ Henry VU. 



354 ■ PARALLELISMS. 

And again: 

The tidcx and currents of received errors.' 

• 

Shakespeare says: 

The tide of blood in me 
Hath proudly flowed in vanity till now; 
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea; 
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods, 
And flow henceforth in formal majesty. - 

And it will be observed that the ctirious fact is not thai both 
should employ the word "//V/r," for that was of course a common 
word in the daily speech of all men, but that they should both 
employ it in a metaphorical sense; as the ''tide of affairs," "the 
tide of business," "the tide of errors," "the tide of blood," etc. 

And not only the ocean itself and the tides, but the swelling of 
the waters by distant storms is an image constantly in the minds of 
both. 

Bacon says: 

There was an unusual s-velling in the state, the forerunner of greater troubles.'* 

And again: 

Likewise it is everywhere taken notice of that -vaters do somewhat swell and 
rise before tempests.^ 

While in Shakespeare we have the same comparison applied in 

the same way: 

Before the days of change, still is it so; 
By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust 
Ensuing danger; as, by proof, we see 

The wafers sivell before a boisterous storm .^ 

And here we have this precise thought in Bacon: 

As there are certain hollow blasts of wind and secret s7velliiig oi seas before a 
leinpest, so are there in states.*' 

Can any man believe this exact repetition, not only of thought, 
but of the mode of representing it by a figure of speech, was acci- 
dental ? 

And from this rising of the water both coin an adjective. 

Bacon says: 

Such a s'ivelli7ig season,' 
meaning thereby one full of events and dangers. 

* statutes of Uses. ' Felic. Queen Elizabeth. * Richard III., ii, 3. 

5 2d Ilcnry II '., v, 2. * Natural History 0/ Winds. ' Essay Of Sedition. 

' Hist 07- y of Henry I 'II, 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 355 

While Shakespeare uses the adjective in the same peculiar 
sense: 



Again: 
Again : 
Again : 



As happy prologues to the s-welliitg act 
Of the imperial theme.' 

The S7i'cl/i/!^'- difference. - 

Hehold the s-uu-niiti^ scene. ^ 

Noble, s7('cni)ig spirits.'' 



The clouds, in both writers, furnish similes for overhanging 
troubles. 

Bacon says: 

Nevertheless, since I do perceive that this clouJ hangs over the House} 

And again Bacon says: 

The King, . . . willing to leave a cloud upon him, . . . prodticed him 
openly to plead his pardon.*^ 

Shakespeare says: 

And all the clouds that lowered upon our Iiousc 
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.' 

And asfain Bacon savs : 

But the cloud of so great a rebellion hanging over his head, made him work 
sure.'* 

Shakespeare says : 

How is it that the clouds still houg on you ?" 

Bacon says : 

The King had a careful eye where this wandering cloud would break.'* 

Shakespeare: 

Can such things be, 
And overcome us like a summer's cloud. 
Without our special wonder?" 

Bacon says: 

He had the image and sttperscriftion upon him of the Pope, in his honor of Car- 
dinal. '- 

This thought is developed in Shakespeare into the well known 

comparison: 

A fellow by the hand of nature marked, 
Quoted and signed to do a deed of shame.'* 

' Macbeth, i, 3. 5 Speech. • Hamlet, i, 2. 

2 Richard II.,\,x. « History of Henry P'll. '" History 0/ Henry I 'II. 

3 Henry V., i, cho. ' Richard III., i, i. " Macbeth, iii, 4. 

■• Othello, ii, 3. 8 History of Henry VII. " History of Henry VII. 

^^ King; John, iv, 2. 



356 



PARALLELISMS. 



In the orte case the superscription of the Pope marks the Cardinal 
for honor; in the other the hand of nature has signed its signature 
upon the man to show that he is tit for a deed of shame. 

And Bacon uses the word signature in the following: 

Some immortal monument bearing a character and signature both of the 
power, etc' 

Bacon says: 

Meaning thereby to harroiv his people.* 

Shakespeare says: 

Let the Volsces 

Plow Rome and harro7o Italy.'' 
And again: 

Whose lightest word would harroiv up thy soul.'' 

Bacon says: 

Intending the discretion of behavior is a great tJiicf of vit'ditation} 

Shakespeare says: 

You thief of love} 

And again: 

A very little thief of occasion} 

Bacon says: 

It was not long but Perkin, who was make of (jiiicksilTer, which is hard to hold 
or imprison, began to stir.* 

While Shakespeare says: 

The rogue fled from me like quicksilver} 

And again: 

That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through 
The natural gates and alleys of the body.'" 

Here' Perkin is compared to quicksilver by Bacon; and the 
volatile Pistol is compared to quicksilver by Shakespeare. 

Bacon says: 

They were executed ... at divers places upon the sea-coast of Kent, Sussex 
and Norfolk, for sea-marks or light-houses, to teach Perkin's people to avoid the 
coast." 

' Advancement of Learning, book i. ^ Midsumtner NighCs Dream, iii, 2. 

''^ History of Henry I'll. '' Corioianits, ii. i. 

' Coriolaniis, V, 3. " History of Henry I'll, 

* Hamlet, i, 5. ' Hamlet, i, 5. 

^Advancement of Learning, book ii. '" 2 / llcnry II'., ii, 4. 

" iristorv of Henry I'll. 



IDENTICAL AIETAPIIOKS. 357 

Shakespeare uses the same comparison: 

The very sea-ntark of my utmost sail.' 

In both cases the words are used in a figurative sense. 

Bacon says: 

The King being lost in a wood of suspicion, and not knowing whom to trust.''' 

Shakespeare: 

And I — like one lost in a thorny 7vood, 

That rents the thorns, and is rent with the thorns. 

Seeking a way, and straying from the way; 

Not knowing how to find the open air. 

Hut toiling desperately to find it out.* 

Speaking of the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy, Bacon says: 

This was a finer counterfeit stone than Lambert Simnel; being better done and 
worn upon greater hands; being graced after with the wearing of a King of 
France.* 

And again: 

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set} 

In Shakespeare, Richmond describes Richard III. as 

A base, foul stone, made precious by the foil 
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set.* 

Here Bacon represents Warbeck as a "counterfeit stone;" 
Shakespeare represents Richard III. as "a foul stone." One is 
graced by a King's wearing; the other is made precious by being 
"set" in the royal chair of England. 

Bacon says: 

Neither the excellence of wit, however great, nor the die of experience, how- 
ever frequently cast, can overcome such disadvantages.' 

And again Bacon says: 

Determined to put it to the hazard.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

I have set my life upon a cast, 

And I will stand the hazard of the die} 

The singular thought that ships are walls to the land occurs in 
Bacon: 

" Othello, V, 2. 6 Essay Of Beauty. 

'' History of Henry I 'II. ^ Richard III., v, 3. 

'^ 3d Henry VI., iii, 2. ' Preface to Great Instauration. 

* History of Henry I'll. 8 ll'/sitoin of the Ancients — Sphynx. 

'> Richard III., v, 4. 



358 PARALLELISMS. 

And for the timber of this realm ... it is the matter for our walls, walls not 
only for our houses, but fo7- oi/r islniid.'^ 

Shakespeare speaks of the sea itself as a wall: 

This precious s/fl7ic sef in a silver sea. 
Which serves it in the office of a 7vall} 

Here again we see Bacon's "Virtue is like a rich sione,h&s\. plain 

set." 

And again Shakespeare says: 

When our si-a-7va!li'd ga.r<^cn. the whole land, 
Is full of weeds.'* 

Bacon says; 

To speak and to trumpet out your commendations.* 

Shakespeare says: 

Will plead like angels, tnii>ipet-iongue&^ 

Bacon says: 

This lia-e she cast abroad, thinking that this fame and belief . . . would draw 
at one time or other some birds to strike upon it.* 

Shakespeare employs the same comparison. 
Petruchio says of Katharine: 

My falcon now is sharp and passing empty: 
And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged, 
For then she never looks upon her lure."^ 

Bacon has: 

Whose leisurely and snail-like pacc.^ 

Shakespeare has: 

Snail-paced beggary . ^ 

Bacon says: 

But touching the reannexing of the duchy of Britain, . . . the embassador 
hare aloof from it as if it was a rock.^^ 

In the play of Henry VIII., Norfolk sees Wolsey coming, and 
says to Buckingham : 

Lo, where comes that rock 
That I advise vour shunning." 



' Case of Impeachment of Waste. ' History of Henry I'll. 

"^Richard //., ii, i. ' Tatiiing o/ the Shreii< , iv, i. 

'Ibid., iii, 4. ^ History of Henry VH. 

* Letter to Villiers. June 12, 1616. '•* Richard HI., iv, 3. 

5 Macbeth, i, 7. '" History 0/ Henry VH. 

^^ Henry I'll I., i, i. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. :;59 

Both use the tempering of wax as a nietaph(jr. 
Bacon : 

The King would not take his [Lambert's] life, taking him h\\\ as an image of 
wax that others had tempered and molded.' 

Falstaff says : 

There I will visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already temper- 
ing between my finger and my thumb, and shortly I will seal with him.^ 

Bacon says : 

With long and continual counterfeiting, and with oft telling a lie, he was 
turned by habit almost into the thing he seemed to be; and from a liar to a 
believer. * 

Shakespeare says: 

Like one 
Who having unto truth, by telling of it, 
Made such a sinner of his memory 
To credit his own //<'.* 

Bacon says: 

Fortune is of a woman s nature, and will sooner follow by slighting than by 
too much wooing/ 

Shakespeare : 

Well, \i fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear.* 

Bacon: 

The Queen had endured a strange eclipse by the King's flight.'' 

Shakespeare: 

I take my leave of thee, fair son, 
Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.* 

Bacon says: 

The King saw plainly that the kingdom must again he. pt/t to the stake, and that 
he must Jight for it.' 

Shakespeare says: 

They have tied me to the stake : I cannot fly, 
But, bear-like, I must fight the course.'" 

And again: 

Have you not set mine honor at the stake '''^ 
Again: 

I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course." 



> History of Henry VH. ^ Letter to Vilhers, 1616. " History of Henry VII. 

"^ 3d Henry Il'\ iv, 3. « Merchant of Venice, ii, 2. "> Twelftli Niglit, iii, i. 

' History of Henry VII. ' History of Henry VII. " Macbeth, V, 7. 

■* Tempest, i, 2. "^ ist Henry J'l., iv, 5. "^ Lear, iii, 7. 



360 



PARALLELISMS. 



Speaking of the rebellion of Lambert Simnell, Bacon says: 

But their siunv-ball did not gather as it went. 

Shakespeare says: 

If but a dozen French 
Were there in arms, they would be as a call 
To train ten thousand English to their side; 
Or, as a little siioiv, tumbled about, 
Anon becomes a mountain.' 

Both conceive of truth as something buried deep and only to be 
gotten out by digging. 
Bacon says: 

As we can dig truth out of the mine.- 

Shakespeare says: 

I will find 
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed 
Within the center." 

Both compare human life to a pilgrimage. 
Bacon: 

In this progress and pilgrimage of human life.'* 

Shakespeare: 

How brief the life of man 
Runs his erring pilgrimage ; 

That the stretching of a span 
Buckles in his sum of age.-^ 

Both use the comparison of drowning to express overwhelmed 
or lost. 
Bacon: 

Truth dnnvned in the depths of obscurity.* 

Shakespeare says: 

While heart is droivned in cares.'' 
I drowued these news in tears. ^ 

Bacon says: 

But men are wanting to themselves in laying this gift of the gods upon the 
back of a silly, slow-paced ass." 

' King John, iv, 4. ^ As You Like It, iii, 2. 

^ History of Henry I 'II. ^ Wisdom of the A ncients — Prometheus. 

' Haniiet, i, 2. , '' 2d Henry VI., iii, i. 

* Wisdom of the .■\ncients — Sphynx. ^jd Henry VI., ii, i. 

' \]'iscip)n of the Ancients — Prometheus. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 361 

Shakespeare: 

If thou art rich thou art poor, 
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows. 
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, 
And death unloads thee.' 

In both we find the strange and unchristian thought that the 
heavenly powers use men as a means of amusement; and both 
express it with the same word, sport. 

Bacon says: 

As if it were a custom that no mortal man should be admitted to the table of 
the gods, but for sport " 

Shakespeare says: 

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: 
Thev kill us for their sport} 

Bacon says: • 

Your life is nothing but a continual actiui; on the stagc.'^ 

While Shakespeare has: 

All the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players.^ 

We find Bacon making this comparison in the address of the 

Sixth Counselor to the Prince: 

I assure your Excellency, their lessons were so cumbersome, as if they would 
make you a king in a play, who, when one would think he standeth in great 
majesty and felicity, is troubled to say his part.* 

And we find Shakespeare making use of the same comparison 
in sonnet xxiii: 

As an imperfect actor on the stage. 
Who with his fear is put beside his pan. 

Bacon says: 

The maintaining of the laws, which is the Iwdgi' and fence about the liberty of 
the subject.'' 

Shakespeare uses the same comparison: 

There's such divinity doth hrdgc a k'ing.** 

Bacon says: 

The place I have in reversion, as it standeth now unto me, is like another 

' Measure /o7- Measure, iii, i. ^ As i'ou Like It, ii, 7. 

"^ Wisdom o/ihe Ancients — Nemesis. " Gesta Grayoruin — /,//(• atid Works, vol. i, p. 340, 

' Lear, iv, i. ' Charge against St. John. 

* Mask for Essex. " ftaiulrl, iv, 5. 



o 



62 PARALLELISMS. 



man's ground reaching upon my house, which may mend my prospect, but doth 
not fill my barn.' 

While Shakespeare indulges in a parallel thought: 

Falstaff. Of what quality was your love, then ? 

Fo7-d. Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so that I have lost 
my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it.^ 

Bacon says: 

Duty, though my state lie buried in the sands, and my favors be cast upon the 
waters, and my honors be committed to the wind, yet slandeth surely built upon 
the rock, and hath been and ever shall be unforced and unattempted.' 

And Shakespeare says: 

Yet my duty, 
As does a rock against the chiding flood, 
Should the approach of this wild river break ' 

And stand unshaken yours.'* 

Bacon, speaking of popular prophecies, says: 

My judgment is that they ought all to be despised and ought but to serve for 
winter talk by the fireside} 

Shakespeare says: 

Oh, these flaws and starts 
(Impostors to true fear) would well become 
A woman's story by a winter s fire. 
Authorized by her grandam.* 

In the Advertiscincut Touching:; an Holy JFar, Bacon uses the com- 
parison of a fan, separating the good from the bad by the wind 
thereof. Speaking of the extirpation of the Moors of Valencia, one 
of the parties to the dialogue, Zebedous, says: 

Make not hasty judgment, Gamaliel, of that great action, which was as 
Christ's fan in those countries. 

And in Troihis and Cressida we have the same comparison: 

Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, 
Puffing at all, winnows the light away.'' 

Bacon says: 

Though the deaf adder will not hear, yet is he charmed that he doth not hiss. 

Shakespeare says in the sonnets: 

My adder sense 
To critic and to flatterer stopped is. 



■ 1 Letter to the Lord Keeper. •• Henry VIIL, iii, 2. 

^ Merry IVives 0/ Windsor, n, 2. '•''Essa.y Of Pro/>hecies. 

s Letter written for Esse.x. * Macbeth, iii, 4. 

' Troilus and Cressida i. 3. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 363 

Another very odd and unusiuil comparison is used by both: 

Bacon, referring to the rebellion of Cornwall and the pretensions 

of Perkin Warbeck to the crown, says: 

But now these huhhles began to meet as they use to do upon the top of the 
-aui/er. ' 

And again: 

The action in Ireland was but a bubbler '' 

Shakespeare says, speaking of the witches in Macbeth: 

The earth hath bubbles as the ivater has, 
And these are of them.* 

And again: 

Seeking the bubble, reputation, 
Even in the cannon's mouth. ^ 

.\nd do but blow them to their trials, the bubbles are out.^ 

Bacon says: 

But it was ordained that this winding-?'?;!' of a Plantagenet should kill the true 
tree itself.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

That now he was 
The 17')' which had hid my princely trunk. 
And suck'd my virtue out on 't.' 

Here it is not a reference merely to the ivy, but to the ivy as the 
destroyer of the tree, and in both cases applied metaphorically. 

Bacon says: 

Upon the first grain of incense that was saeri Jieel upon the altar of peace ai 
Boloign, Perkin was smoked away.^ 



Shakespeare: 



Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, 
The gods themselves throw incense.^ 



H-ere is a curious parallelism: 

Bacon: 

The last words of those that suffer death for religion, like the songs of dyiui;- 
swans, do wonderfully work upon the minds of men, and strike and remain a long 
time in their senses and memories. '° 

' History of Henry VU. ^ As You Like It, ii, 7. ' Tempest, \, 2. 

^ Ibid. 5 Hamiet, v, 2. 8 History 0/ Henry VU. 

* Macbeth, \,T,. '^ History 0/ Henry III. ^L,-ar,v,i,. 

'" Wisdom 0/ the .-iticicnts — Dioiiiedes. 



364 PARALLELISM^^. 

Shakespeare says: 



And again: 
And again: 



The tongues of dying men 
Enforce attention like deep harmony.' 

Then if he lose, he makes a swan-X\\i^ end, 
Fading in music* 

'Tis strange that death should sing. 
I am the cygnet to this pale, faint swan. 
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own deatk.^ 



Here we have in both not only the comparison of the words 
of dying men to the song of dying swans; but the fact is noted 
that the words of such men "enforce attention" and "strike and 
remain a long time" in the minds and memories of men. 

In both, the liming of bushes to catch birds is used as a meta- 
phor. Bacon says: 

Whatever service I do to her Majesty, it shall be thought to be but se>~i'itiuin 
viscatiiiii, lime-twigs and fetches to place myself.* 

Shakespeare says: 

They are li/i/ed with the twigs.^ 

Myself have /i//ied a bush for her.' 

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free.' 

Like lime-twigs set.^ 

Mere fetches, the images of revolt.'' 

In both, sickrress and death are compared to an arrest by an 
officer. 

Bacon says, alluding to his sickness at Huntingdon: 

This present arrest of me by his Divine Majesty. 
Shakespeare says: 

This fell sergeant, Death, 

Is strict in his arrest. ^^ 

And in sonnet Ixxiv Shakespeare says, speaking of his death: 

But be contented; when that fell arrest. 
Without all bail, shall carry me away. 



1 Richard II., ii, 1. * All's Well that Ends Well, Hi, 5. 

" Merchant 0/ I 'en ice, iii, 2. * 2d Henry VI., i, 3. 

3 King John, v, 7. ' Hamlet, iii, 3. 

^Letterto F. Greville — /.//c and Works, ^ 2d Henry I'l., iii, 3. 

vol. i, p. 359. ' Lear, ii, 4. 

^"Hamlet, V, 2. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. 



565 



Bacon speaks of 

The hour-glass of one man's lifc.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Turning the accomplishment of many jwrrj 
Into an hour-glass} 

In Bacon we have the odor of flowers compared to music: 

The breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air ( where it comes and goes like 
the warbling of music) than in the hand.^ 

Shakespeare reverses the figure, and compares the sounds of 
music to the odor of flowers: 

That strain again; — it had a dying fall; 
Oh, it came o'er my soul like the sweet south, 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odor.^ 

Bacon says: 

That repose of the mind which only rides at anchor w^on hope.* 

Shakespeare says: 

See, Posthumus anchors upon Imogen/ 

Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue. 
Anchors on Isabel.' 

Bacon says: 

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall} 

Shakespeare says: 

I charge thee fling away ambition . 



By that sin fell the angels} 



We have in Bacon the following curious expression: 

These things did he [King Henry] wisely foresee. . . . whereby all things/^/ 
into his lap as he desired.'" 

Shakespeare says: 

Now the time is come 
That France must veil her lofty plumed crest, 
And let her heady'^z// into England's lap}'^ 



' Advance}nent 0/ Learning, book li. " L'yiiil>clint\ v, 5. 

' Henry V., prologue. " Measure for Measure, ii, , 

' Essay Of Gardens. " Essay 0/ Goodness. 

* Twel/tli Night, i, i. " Henry I'll/., iii. 2. 

s Med. Sacra— Of Earthly fJope. '» History 0/ Henry 1 7/. 

^^ Henry 11., v, 2. 



366 



PA KA LLELISMS. 

We all remember Keats' touchintJ^ epitaph: 

"* Here lies one whose name was writ in water. 

We find the original of this thought in Shakespeare: 

Noble madam, 
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues 
We write in water.' 

And if we follow back the pedigree of the thought we find it in 

Bacon's 

High treason is not written in iccr 

And this reappears in Shakespeare thus: 

This weak impress of love is as a fit^ur-j 
Trench'd in ice, which with an hour's heat 
Dissolves to 7vater, and does lose his form.^ 

Bacon: 

Your beadsman therefore addresseth himself to your Majesty.'' 

Shakespeare: 

Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, 
For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.'' 

In the following we have a striking parallelism. Bacon says: 

In this t/ieaiei'ui man's life it is reserved, etc." 

Shakespeare says: 

This wide and universal llieater 

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 

Wherein we play.'' 

And we have the same thought presented in another form. 
Bacon says: 

Your life is nothing but a continual acting:; upon a stage.* 

Shakespeare says: 

All the world's a stage. 
And all the men and women merely players.'' 



Bacon says: 

For this giant bestrideth the sea; and I would take and snare him by the foot on 
this side.'" 



1 Ih-nry Till., iv, 2. 

2 Coil. Sent. 

^ Tivo Gentlemen oj" J'eroiia, ill, ■2. 

^ Letter to the King. 

^ T'zvo Centletuen 0/ Vcro7in, i, i. 



' Adi'anceinent 0/ Learning. 
''As Voii Like It, ii, 6. 
** Mask. 

* As Von Like It, ii, 7. 
^0 Duels. 



IDENTICAL ME TAPHOKS. 



367 



Shakespeare says: 

His legs hcsirid the ocean} 

And again : 

Why, man, he doth best ride the narro^a world 
Like a Colossus." 

Bacon says: 

Many were glad that these /iv7;-.v and uncertainties were oTer/doivn , and that the 
idie was cast.'" 

Shakespeare says: 

The ague-fit of /;■,//• is overhlozi'ii} 

Again: 

At 'scapes and perils 07'erhloivitJ' 

Bacon says: 

Religion, justice, counsel and treasure are the io\xx pillars i^^i government.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Brave peers of England, />///(?;-.>■ of the state." 

The triple ////(/r of the world." 

These shoulders, these ruined ////(/ry.^ 

I charge )'Ou by the law. 
Whereof you are a well-deserving ////<7r."' 

The seeds of plants furnish a favorite subject of comparison 
with both writers. 

Bacon speaks of ideas that 

Cast their seeds in the minds of others." 

He also refers to 

The secret seeds of diseases. '-' 

Again he says: 

There has been covered in my mind a long time a jy'c</ of affection and zeal 
-toward your Lordship.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

There is a history in all men's lives 
Figuring the nature of the times deceased; 

' Antony and Cteu/airu, V, 2. ' 2d Henry VI., i, i. 

"^Julius Ctpsar, i, 2. " Antony and Cleopaira, i, i. 

' Begin. History of Great Britain. » Henry I'lH., iii, 2. 

* Richard II., iii, 2. '" Merchant of Venice, iv, i. 

* Taming of the Shreiv, v, 2. " Advancement of Learnint^, book i. 
•* Essay Of Seditions. >» Essay OfDesfiatcIi. 

'3 Letter to I2arl of Northumberland. 



368 PARALLELISMS. 

The which observed, a man may prophesy, 
With a near aim, of the main chance of things 
As yet to come to life; which in their seeds 
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.' 

He also speaks of 

The seed of honor.* 

The seeds of time.^ 

Bacon compares himself to a torch: 

I shall, perhaps, before my death have rendered the age a li^ht unto posterity, 
by kindling this new torch amid the darkness of philosophy.'' 

Again he says: 

Matters should receive success by combat and emulation, and not hang tipoir 
any one mans sparkling and shaking torch} 

Shakespeare says: 

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do. 
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not.* 

Speaking of Fortune, Shakespeare says: 

The wise and fool, the artist and unread, 
The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin: 
But in the wind and tempest of her frown. 
Distinction, with a broad and powerful yi?;/, 
Puffing at all, winnows the light away; 
And what hath mass or matter, by itself 
Lies, rich in virtue and itnmingled? 

And in Bacon we have the same comparison of the winnowing 

fan separating the light from the heavy. He says, speaking of 

church matters: 

And what are mingled but as the chaiT and the corn, which need but 2i fan to 
sift and sever them.** 

Shakespeare says: 

Be thou as lightning in the ej'es of France.' 

Bacon, describing Essex' expedition against Cadiz, said: 

This journey was like lightning. For in the space of fourteen hours the King 
of Spain's navy was destroyed and the town of Cales taken.'" 

1 2d Henry IV., iii, i. * Wisdom of the A ncients — Prometheus. 

2 Merchant of Venice, ii, 9. ' Measure for Measure, i, i. 
' Macbeth, i, 3. ' Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 

^ Letter to King James, prefaced to Great '* The Pacification of the Church. 

Jnstauration. ^ King Joint, i, i. 

'" Consid. touching War with Spain. 



IDENTICAL METAPHORS. -60 

Bacon called one of his great philosophical works 

The sea ling-hid Jer of the intelligence, 

Shakespeare has: 

Northumberland, thou ladder, wherewithal 

The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne.' 

Bacon says: 

It is the wisdom of crocodiles that shed tears when they would devour.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Gloster's show 
Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile 
With sorrow snares relenting passengers/' 

Says Bacon: 

The axe should be put to the root of the tree.* 

Says Shakespeare: 

We set the axe to thy usurping root.' 

But the field of labor in this direction is simply boundless. 
One whose memory is stored with the expressions found in the two 
sets of writings cannot open either one without being vividly 
reminded of the other. Both writers, if we are to consider them, 
for the sake of argument, as two persons, thought in the same w^ay; 
the cast of mind in each was figurative and metaphorical; both 
vivified the driest details with the electricity of the imagination, 
weaving it through them like lightning among the clouds; and 
each, as I have shown, was very much in the habit of repeating 
himself, and thus reiterated the same figures of speech time and 
again. 

' Richard I J., V, i. ^ 2ti Henry VI., iii, i. 

2 Essay Of Wisdom /or a Man^s Self. ■• Proceedings at York House, 

^Sd Henry VI., ii, 2. 



CHAPTER III. 

IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 

A plague of opinion ! A man may wear it on both sides like a leather jerkin. 

J'roi/us ami Cressida, Hi, J. 

WE come now to another group of parallelisms — those of 
thoughts, opinions or beliefs, where the identity is not in 
the expression, but in the underlying conception. 

We find that both writers had great purposes or intentions of 
working for immortality; the one figuring his works as "banks or 
mounts," great earthworks, as it were; the other as great 
foundations or "bases" on which the future might build. 
Bacon says: 

I resolved to spend my time wholly in writing, and to put forth that poor 
talent or half talent, or what it is, that God hath given me, not, as hereto- 
fore, to particular exchanges, but to banks or mounts of J)erpetuity, which will not 
break.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Were it aught to me I bore the canopy, . 

With my extern the outward honoring. 
Or /aid great bases for eterttity. 

Which prove more short than waste or ruining.* 

Here the same idea runs through both expressions — *' banks of 
perpetuity" and "bases for eternity." 

Both believed that a wise government should be omniscient. 

Bacon says: 

So unto princes and states, especially towards wise senators and councils, the 
natures and dispositions of the people, their conditions and necessities, their fac- 
tions and combinations, their animosities and discontents, ought to be, in regard 
to the variety of their intelligence, the wisdom of their observations and the height 
of their station where they keep sentinel, in great part clear and transparent.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

The providence that's in a watchful state 
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold; 
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps; 

' Toiiclihig a Holy U'ar , "^ Sonnet c.rxv. ^ .lth'a>icei;-:ent oj' Lea>n!ng^,hoo\i\i, 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 371 

Keeps place with thought, and, almost like the gods. 

Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. 

There is a mystery (with whom relation 

Durst never meddle) in the soul of state; 

Which hath an operation more divine 

Than breath, or pen, can give expression to.' 

Both had noted that envy eats into the spirits and the very bod}^ 
<if a man. 

Bacon says: 

Love and envy do make a man pine, which other affections do not, because 
they are not so continual.* 

Such men in other men's calamities are, as it were, in season, and are ever on 
the loading part.^ 

Envy is the worst of all passions, and feedeth upon the spirits, and they again 
upon the body.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look: , . . 
Such men as he be never at heart's ease 
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves.^ 

Both speak of hope as a medicine of the mind. Bacon says: 

To make hope the antidote of human diseases." 

And again: 

And as Aristotle saith. "That young men may be happy, but not otherwise 
but by hope.'" ' 

Shakespeare says: 

The miserable have no other medicine 
But f)nly hope.^ 

Both had observed the shriveling of parchment in heat. Bacon 
says: 

The parts of wood split and contract, skins become shriveled, and not only 
that, but if the spirit be emitted suddenly by the heat of the fire, become so hastily 
contracted as to twist and roll themselves up.* 

Shakespeare uses the same fact as the basis of a striking com- 
parison, as to King John, dying of poison: 

There is so hot a summer in my bosom. 
That all my bowels crumble up to dust: 
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen 
Upon a parchment ; and against this fire 
Do I shrink up.'" 



^ Troilus and Cressida^ iii, 3- * History of Life and Death. '' Advancement of Learning. 

* Essay Of Envy , ^Julius Ccesar, i, 2. " Measure for Measure., iii, i. 

^^%i,2iy Of Goodness. ^ Med. Sacrie. ^ Novum Org^anum, book ii. 

^^ Kingjohn., V, 7. 



372 



PARALLELISMS. 



We find both dwelling upon the fact that a shrewd mind will 
turn even disadvantages to use. Bacon says: 

Excellent nnts will make tise of every little thing.^ 

Falstaff says: 

It is no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my color, and my pension- 
shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything. I will 
turn diseases to commodity.'-' 

Both had observed that sounds are heard better at night than 

by day. Bacon says: 

Sounds are better heard, and farther off, in the evening or in the night, than at 
the noon or in the day. . . . But when the air is more thick, as in the night, the 
sound spendeth and spreadeth. As for the night, it is true also that the general 
silence helpeth.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Soft stillness and the night 
Become the touches of sweet harmony.'' 

And again: 

Nerissa. It is your music, madam, of the house. 
Portia. Nothing is good, I see, without respect; 
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.^ 

In the following it appears that the same observation had 

occurred to both in another instance. 

Bacon says: 

Anger suppressed is also a kind of vexation, and causeth the spirit to feed 
upon the juices of the body; but let loose and breaking forth it helpeth.' 

Shakespeare says: 

The grief that will not speak 
Whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break.' 

And again: 

The heart hath treble wrong 
When it is barred the aidance of the tongue.'* 

Both allude to the same curious belief. Bacon says: 

The heavens turn about in a most rapid motion, without noise to us perceived; 
though in some dreams they have been said to make an excellent music' 

1 Bacon's letter to Sir Foulke Greville, written in the name of tlie Earl of Esse.\ — Life and 
Works^ vol. ii, p. 23. 

' zd Henry IV., i, 2. * History of Li/c and Death. 

^ Natural History, cent, ii, § 143. ' ^Tachctll, iv, 3. 

^ Merchant 0/ Venice, v, 1. "Poems. 

* Ibid. ^ Natural History cent. ii. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 373 

Shakespeare idealizes dreams thus: 

There's n<jt the smallest orb which thou beholdest 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims.' 

And here we find both drawing the same distinction between 

the approbation of the wise and the foolish. 

Hamlet says to the players: 

Now this, overdor^e, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, 
cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must, in your 
allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theater of others.' 

Bacon says: 

So it may be said of ostentation, " Boldly sound your own praises, and some of 
it will stick." It will stick in the more ignorant and the populace, though men of 
wisdom may smile at it; and the reputation won with many will amply countervail 
the disdain of a few.^ 

This conclusion is, of course, ironical. 

Bacon compares the earth to an ant-hill, with the men, 

Like ants, craivling up and down. Some carry corn and some carry their 
young, and some go empty, and all — to and fro — a little heap of ditst.^ 

And we find the same thought in Hamlet: 

What should such fellows as I do (-;-(77i'//;/_^'- between earth and heaven.* 

Here the word crawling expresses the thought of something 

vermin-like, insect-like, and the comparison of the whole ant-hill of 

the crawling world to "a little heap of di/st" was in Bacon's mind 

when he wrote: 

What a piece of work is man! . . . And yet to me what is this quintessence of 

dust ? 

Both had noticed the servility of the creatures that fawn on 

power. Bacon says: 

Such instruments as are never failing about princes, which spy into their 
humors and conceits and second them; and not only second them, but in second- 
ing increase them; yea, and many times without their knowledge pursue them 
farther than themselves would.* 

Shakespeare puts these words into the mouth of King John: 

It is the curse of kings to be attended 

By slaves that take their humor for a warrant 

To break within the bloody house of life; 

' Merchant of I eiii'cc, v, i. ^ AdTanit-nient of Learning, book i. 

' Hatnlet, iii, 2. 6 Hamlet, iii, i. 

^ De Aiignientis, book viii, p. 281. " Letter to Essex, Oct. 4, 1596. 



374 PARALLELISMS. 

And, on the winking of authority, 

To understand a law; to know the meaning 

Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns 

More upon humor than advised respect.' 

Here the same thought is followed out to the same after- 
thought: that the creature exceeds the purpose of the king, in his 
superserviceable zeal. 

Bacon says: 

He prays and labors for that which he knows he shall be no less happy with- 
out; ... he believes his prayers are heard, even when they are denied, and gives 
thanks for that which he prays against. - 

Shakespeare says: 

We, ignorant of ourselves, 
Beg often our own harm, which the wise powers 
Deny us for our good; so find we profit 
By losing of our prayers.'' 

The Rev. H. L. Singleton, of Maryland, calls my attention to 
the following parallelism. 

Bacon says: 

And, therefore, it is no wonder that art hath not the power to conquer nature, 
and by pact or law of conquest to kill her; but on the contrary, it turns out that art 
becomes subject to nature, and yields obedience as wife to husband.* 

And we find in Shakespeare the same philosophy that nature is- 

superior to the very art which seeks to change her. He says: 

Perdita. For I have heard it said. 

There is an art which, in their piedness, shares 

With great creating nature. 

Polixencs. Say there be; 

Yet nature is made better by no mean 

But nature makes that mean; so, over that art 

Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art 

That nature makes. ^ 

Again Shakespeare says: 

Nature's above art.* 
Compare this with Bacon's expression, above: 

Art becomes subject to nature. 

And Bacon says in The New Atlantis : 

We make by art, in the same orchards and gardens, trees and flowers to come 

' King John, iv, 2. * Atalanta or Gain, 

■•■ Character 0/ a Believing Christian, § 22. '' Winter s Tale, iv, 3. 

' Antony and Cleofiatra. * Lear, iv, 6. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 3^5 

earlier or later than their seasons, and to come up and bear more speedily than by 
their natural course they do. We make them also by their art (greater than their 
nature.^ 

This is the same thought that we find in the verses above 

quoted: 

That art 
Which, you say, adds to nature. 

Mr. J. T. Cobb calls attention to the following parallelism of 

thought. In book ii, Advancement of Learnings Bacon says: 

These three, as in the body so in the mind, seldom tneet and commonly sever; 
. . . and sometimes two of them meet, and rarely all three. ' 

While in the Shakespeare sonnets we have: 

Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. 
Fair, kind and true, have often lived alone, 
Which three, till now, never did meet in one.'' 

Both regarded rather the fact than the expression of it. 

Bacon says: 

Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words, and 
not matter.^ 

We seein to hear Hamlet's mocking utterance: 

What read you, my lord ? 
Words, words, words. ° 

Miss Delia Bacon notea that both held the same view as to the 

dependence of men on events. 

Shakespeare says: 

So our virtues 
Lie in the interpretation of the times. ^ 

While Bacon says: 

The times, in many cases, give great light to true interpretations. 

Mrs. Pott calls attention to the following parallelism. In 
Bacon's F ramus. No. 972, we have : 

Always let losers have their words. 
And Shakespeare echoes this as follows: 

Losers will have learw 
To ease their stomachs with their h'lXXer tvords."^ 

' Nem Atlantis. * Advancevient of Learning, book i. 

* I Montagu, p. 228. ^Hamlet, ii, 2. 

' Sonnet cv. ' Coriolanus, iv, 7. 

' Titus Androniius, iii, i. 



3^6 PARALLELISMS. 

Also: 

And well such losers may have lea-vi: to speak.' 

Bacon says: 

For protestations, and professions, and apologies, I never found them very 
fortunate; but they rather increase suspicion than clear it.- 

In Shakespeare we have: 

Llanilet. Madam, how like you this play? 
Queen. The lady protests too much, methinks.-' 

Both even used and believed i/i the same drug. 

Bacon says: 

For opening, I commend beads or pieces of carduus t>enedic(us.* 

In Much Ado about Nothing we have : 

Get you some of this distilled carduus benedictus and lay it to your heart; it is 
the only thing for a qualm/ 

Both believed that murders were brought to light by the opera- 
tion of God. Bacon speaks of the belief in the wounds of the mur- 
dered man bleeding afresh at the approach of the murderer, and 
says: 

It may be that this participateth of a miracle, by God's judgment, who usually 
bringeth tmirders to light. 

Macbeth says : 

It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood; 
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak 
Augurs, and understood relations have 
By magot-spies, and choughs and rooks, brought forth 
The secretest man of blood." 

Bacon speaks of 

The instant ocqa^\ox\ flying aivay irnconcilably.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

The flighty purpose never is o' ertoofi 
Unless the act go with it.* 

Church speaks of Bacon's 

Great idea of the reality and boundless worth of knowledge . . . which 
had taken possession of his whole nature.' 

1 2d Henry I'l., iii, i. ' Muck Ado about Nothing, iii, +. 

■^Speech about Undertakers. ' Macbeth, iii, 4. 

' Hamlet, iii, 2. ' Speech as Lord Chancellor. 

^ Natural History, cent, .x, 8963. ' Macbeth, iv, i. 

" I'.icnn. •^. 21 ■. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 377 

Shakespeare says: 

There is no darkness but ignorance.' 
Oh, thou monster, ignorance ! ' 

Bacon says: 

There is no prison to the prison of the thoughts.* 

Shakespeare has the same thought: 

Hamlet. Denmark's a prison. 

Rosencrantz. Then is the world one. 

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons; 
Denmark being one of the worst. 

Ros. We think not so, my lord. 

Ham. Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but 
thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.^ 

As this book is going through the press Mr. James T. Cobb calls 
my attention to the following parallelism. 

Bacon, in the Novum O ?-!;^aii!i»i, referring to the effect of opiates, 

says : 

The same opiates, when taken in moderation, do strengthen the spirits, render 
them more robust, and check the useless and iiiflantDiaiorv motion.^ 

Falstaff, describing the effect of wine on the system, says, speak- 
ing of the " demure boys," like Prince John: 

They are generally fools and cowards; which some of us should be, too, but 
for inflammation.^ 

This y/^ovd inflammation is uncommon; this is the only occasion 
on which it appears in the Plays. 

Shakespeare speaks of 

Sermons in stones and g;ood in e^'etylhiiii;. 
Bacon says: 

There is found in C7<en' t/ii>ig?\. double nature ui good.'^ 

And here we have a curious parallelism. Bacon says: 

It is more than a philosopher morally can digest; but, without any such high 
•conceit, I esteem it like the pulling out of an aching tooth, which I remember, 
•when I was a child and had little //^//c.so/'/'r, I was glad of when it was done." 

' Tivclftli Night, iv, 2. ^ Hamlet, ii, 2. '' Advance in e 11 1 of Learning; 

"^ LoTes Labor Lost, iv, 2. * Novum Organuin. book ii. book ii. 

■^ Mask for Earl of Esse.x. ^ 2d Henry Il'..\\, t,. " Letter to Essex. 



;78 



PARALLELISMS. 



While Shakespeare links the philosopher and the tooth-ache 
together thus: 

For there was never y&X. fhiiosop/icr 
That could endure the looth-aclie patiently; 
However, they have writ the style of gods, 
And made a pish at chance and sufferance." 

The various modes in which fortunes are obtained had occurred 
to both writers. Bacon says: 

Fortunes are not obtained without all this ado; for 1 know they come tumbling 
into some men's laps; and a number obtain good fortunes by diligence in a plain 
way.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Some men are born great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness 
thrust upon them.'' 

That is to say, greatness ''tumbles into their laps." 

And to both had come the thought that while fortune gave with 
one hand she stinted with the other. 
Bacon says: 

It is easy to observe that many have strength of wit and courage, but have- 
neither help from perturbations, nor any beauty or decency in their doings; some 
again have an elegancy and fineness of carriage, which have neither soundness of 
honesty nor substance of sufficiency; and some, again, have honest and reformed 
minds and can neither become themselves or manage business; and sometimes 
two of them meet, and rarely all three. •• 

Shakespeare says: 

Will fortune never come with both hands full? . . . 
She either gives a stomach and no food — 
Such are the poor in health; or else a feast. 
And takes away the stomach — such are the rich 
That have abundance and enjoy it not.' 

Bacon says: 

It is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest 
we become giddy.* 

Shakespeare has: 

Fortune, good-night; smile again, 
Turn thv 'wheel? 



Again: 



Giddv Fortune' s furious fickle inheciy 



' Much Ado about Nothing, v. i. 

^ Advancevtent of Learning, book ii. 

=" Twelfth Night, iii. 5. 

■• IdTancement of Learning, book ii. 



'•• 2d Henry 11 "., iv. 4. 

" History 0/ Life :<><<! Death. 

' Lear, ii, 2. 

" Henry J ', iii, 6. 



I DEN riCA L OPINIONS. 



379 



Again: 



Consider it not so deeply 
That way madness lies.' 



We find that both writers realized the wonderfully complex 

character of the human creature. 

Bacon says: 

Of all things comprehended within the compass of the universe, man is a thing 
most mixed and compounded, insomuch that he was well termed by the ancients 

// little world. ... It is furnished with most adiiiirahh' virtues and faculties." 

And again: 

Of all the substances which nature hath produced, man's body is most extremely 
compounded: ... in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, man hath in finite 
7>ariations.^ 

The Plays were written, in part, to illustrate the characteristics 
of that wonderfully compounded creature, man. And in them we 
find: 

What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! How infinite in f acuity! 
In form and moving, how express and <7</w?';'rt/'/t/ In action, how like an angel ! In 
apprehension how like a god ! The beauty of the world ! The paragon of animals !■* 

These are the admirable faculties referred to by Bacon; and 
** the little world " of the ancients, the uiiirocostii^ reappears in Shake- 
speare: 

If you see this in the map of my niicrocosiu, follows it that I am known well, 
enough too?^ 

And in the play of Richard II. we find the very expression, 

"little world," applied to the human being: 

My brain I'll prove the female to my soul; 

My soul the father: and these two beget 

A generation of still-breeding thoughts, 

And these same thoughts people this little world; 

In humors like the people of this world." 

Bacon has the following thought: 

No doubt in him, as in all men, and most of all in kings, his fortune wrought 
upon his nature, and his nature upon his fortune.' 

The same thought occurs In Shakespeare: 

I grow to what I work in. 
Like the dyer's hand.* 



' Macbeth^ ii, 2. 

" Wisdovt of the A ncients — Prometheus. 
^ Advancement 0/ Learnings book ii. 
■• Havitei, ii. 2. 



•' CoriolanuSy ii. i. 
" Richard I/., v, 4. 
' ///story 0/ //cnry I'll. 
" Sonnet. 



380 P'^ A'. / LLELISMS. 

And both concurred in iinother curious belief. 

Bacon says: 

And therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he pretend the 
virtue that shadoweth it.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Assume a virtue if you have it not.'-' 

Bacon says: 

Envy makes greatness the mark and accusation the game. 

Shakespeare says: 

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect. 

For slander's mark was ever yet the fair; 
The ornament of beauty is suspect, 

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air." 

Something of the same thought is found in Bacon's Promus, 
No. 41: 

Dat veitiam corvis vexat cettsura colitmbas. (Censure pardons crows, but bears 
hard on doves.) 

" Slander's mark was ever yet the fair." The beautiful dove falls 
readily under suspicion; but censure pardons " the crow that flies 
in heaven's sweetest air." 

Bacon says: 

Health consisteth in an unmovable constancy and a freedom from passions, 
which are indeed ihi: sicknesses of the mind* 

Macbeth asks the physician: 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?^ 

Bacon says: 

For reverence is that wherewith princes are girt from God.'' 

And again: 

For God hath imprinted such a majesty in the face of a prince that no private 
man dare approach the person of his sovereign with a traitorous intent.' 

Shakespeare surrounds the king with a hedge — a divine hedge 

— which girts him: 

There's such divinity doth hedge a king, 
That treason can but peep to what it would, 
Acts little of his will.* 



^ Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. 
'^ Hantiet, ill, 4. 
3 Sonnet Ixx. 

■* Letter to Earl of Rutland, written 
in the name of the Ear! of Esse.\. 



^Macbeth, v, 3. 

" Essay Of Seditions. 

' Speech on the Trial of Essex. 

* Hamlet, iv, 5. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 



58r 



Says Bacon: 

This princess having the spirit of a man and malice of a woman.' 
Shakespeare has a similar antithesis; 

I have a man's mind, but a woman's might.* 

The indestructibility of thought as compared with the tempo- 
rary nature of material things had occurred to both. Bacon says: 

For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, with- 
out the loss of a syllable or a letter, during which time infinite palaces, temples, 
castles, cities have been decayed and demolished." 

And Shakespeare, in a magnificent burst of egotism, possible 

only under a mask, cries out: 

Not marble, 
Nor the gilded monuments of princes. 
Shall outlive this powerful rhyme. ^ 

Bacon has this thought: 

For opportunity makes the thief.* 
Shakespeare says: 



And again: 



And again: 



And even thence thou wilt be stolen, 1 fear. 
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.* 



Rich preys make true men thieves.' 



How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 
Makes ill deeds done.* 



Bacon tells us that King Henry VII. sent his commissioners to- 

inspect the Queen of Naples with a view to matrimony, and desired 

them 

To report as to her " complexion, favor, feature, stature, health, age, customs, 
behavior, condition and estate," as if he meant to find all things in one liwman.^ 

And in Shakespeare we find Benedick soliloquizing: 

One woman is fair; yet I am well: another is wise; yet I am well: another vir- 
tuous; yet I am well; httt till all graces be in one 7uoman, one woman shall not come 
in my grace.'" 



' History of Henry I 'I!. 

"^Julius CiFsar, ii, 4. 

' Advancement 0/ Learnt'nf^, book i. 

* Sonnet. 

' Letter to Essex, 1598. 



* Sonnet xlviii. 
' Venus and Adonis. 
' King John, iv, 2. 
. ' History 0/ Henry VII. 
^^ Much .Ado about Nothing, ii,,z-. 



3 8 2 ^'-i '<A L LEU SMS. 

Bacon says: 

The corruption of the best things is the worst.' 
Shakespeare has the same thought: 

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.''' 

Bacon speaks of 

The mind of man drawn over and clouded with the sable pavilion of the body.' 

And Bacon also says: 

So differing a hannony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit of 
nature.'' 

While Shakespeare says: 

Such Iianiionv is in mortal souls; 

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.^ 

Bacon says: 

A king is a mortal ,;'■<'(/ on rart/i.''' 

Shakespeare says: 

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings, 
A'ius^s if »iakt'.s- i^ods, and meaner creatures kings.'' 

Again: 

Kings are (-nr/h's gods: in vice their law's their will.' 

Again: 

He is their god; he leads them like a thing 
Made by some other deity than Nature.^ 

Bacon says: 

A beautiful face is a silent couinwiidation}^ 

Shakespeare says: 

The beauty that is borne here in the face 
The bearer, knows not, but coiimciids itseif 
To others' eyes." 

We find a curious parallelism in the following. Bacon says: 

For we die daily; and as others have given place to us, so we must in the end 
give way to others.'"^ 

' History of //fiiry I '11. ■• Netu Atlantis. * Pericles, i, i. 

- Sonnet. ^ Merchant of I'enice, v, i. ® Coriolanus, iv, 6. 

^ Advanceinent of Learn- '^ 'E.ss.a.y O/ a Kin^. ^^ Orna. Rati. 

/«^, book ii. '' Richard n/.,\\2. " 7'roilus and Cressida. in, 3. 

I* Essay Of Death. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 383 

Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Orlando these words: 

Only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have 
made it empty.' 

Bacon says; 

The expectation [of death] brings terror, and that exceeds the evil.- 

Shakespeare says: 

Dost thou fear to die ? 
The sense of death is most in apprehension." 

Bacon says: 

Art thou drowned in security ? Then say thou art perfectly dead. 
Shakespeare says: 

You all know, security 
Is mortal's chiefest enemy.* 

Hamlet discusses the length of time a body will last in the 
earth. And Bacon had studied the same curious subject, and he 
notes the fact that 

In churchyards where they bury much, the earth will consume the corpse in far 
shorter time than other earth will."" 

Bacon says: 

The green caterpillar breedeth in the inward parts of roses, especially not 
blown, where the dew sticketh." 

Shakespeare says: 

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud. 
Feed on her damask cheek.' 



H. L. Haydel, of St. Louis, calls my attention to the following 
parallelism noted by Rev. Henry N. Hudson, in his note upon a 
passage in Hamlet, i, 4. 

Mr. Hudson gives the passage, in his edition of the Plays, as fol- 
lows: 

4 Their virtues else — be they as pure as grace, 

As infinite as man may undergo — 
Shall in the general censure take corruption 
From that particular fault; the dram of leaven 
Doth all the noble substance of 'em sour 
To his own scandal. 

Hudson says in his foot-note: 

The meaning is that the dram of leaven sours all the noble substance of their 

^ As Vote Like Ii/\,'2. ^ AfacieiA, iii, 5. « Ibid, §728. 

- Essay O/ Death. ^ Natural History, § 330. ' Twelfth Niffht, ii, 4. 

^ Measure /or .Measure, iii, 1. 



384 



PARALLELISMS. 



virtues. . . . And so in Bacon's ///.f/cn' i^y' /A-«;;i' I'll.: "And as a little leaven of 
new distaste doth commonly sour the whole lump of former merits." 

Here again we find the critics reading the obscure passages in 
Shakespeare by the light of Bacon's utterances. 

• 

Both writers felt a profound contempt for tiie authority of books 
alone. In Shakespeare this was most remarkable. A mere poet, 
with no new philosophy to introduce, seeking in the writings of 
preceding ages only for the beautiful, could have had no motive 
for thus attacking existing opinions. And yet we find him 
saying: 

Study is like the heavens' glorious sun, 

That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks; 

.Small have continual plodders ever won, 
Save base authority, from others' books.' 

In Bacon we find the same opinion and the reason for it. His 
whole life was a protest against the accepted conclusions of his 
age; his system could only rise upon the overthrow of that of Aris- 
totle. He protested against 

The first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter. '- 

Again he says: 

In the universities of Europe men learn nothing but to believe; first to believe 
that others know that which they know not; and after, themselves to believe that 
they know that which they know not.^ 

And again: 

Are we richer by one poor invention by reason of all the learning that hath 
been these many hundred years.'' 

And again he says: 

Neither let him embrace the license of contradicting or the servitude of 
authority} 

This is the very expression of Shakespeare: 

Small have continual plodders ever won, 
Save base authority. 

And again Bacon says: 

To make judgment wholly by their rules [studies] is the humor of a scholar.- 
Crafty men contemn them, simple men admire them, and wise men use them. 

' Love's Labor Lost, i, i. ^ Ibid. 

* Advancement oy Learning, book i. ' Interpretation 0/ Nature. 

^ In Praise of Knoivtedge. ^Kss^y Oy Studies. 



IDENTICAL or IN IONS. 



i85 



And Shakespeare says: 

Why universal ploddintr prisons up 
The nimble spirits in the arteries.' 

And in this connection we have the following opinion of Bacon: 

It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this 
vanity, for worth are but the images of matter; and, except they have life of 
reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one to fall in love with a 
picture. 

We hear the echo of this thought in Hamlet's contemptuous 
iteration: 

Words, TC'ort/s, words . 

And Bacon's very thought is found again in tlie following: 

Idle 7vords, servants to shallow fools. 

Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators ! 
Busy yourselves in skull-contending schools; 

Debate, where leisure serves, with dull debaters. - 

Both writers regarded the lusts or passions of the mind with 
contempt, and perceived their unsatisfying nature. Bacon says: 

And they all know, who have paid dear for serving and obeying their lusts, 
that whether it be honor, or riches, or delight, or glory, or knowledge, or anything 
else which they seek after, yet are they but things cast off, and by divers men in 
all ages, after experience had utterly rejected and loathed.'' 

And we find the same thought in Shakespeare: 

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame 

Is lust in action; and till action, lust 
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame. 

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; 
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight; 

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had. 
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait. 

On purpose laid to make the taker mad: 
Mad in pursuit and in possession so; 

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; 
A bliss in proof — and proved a very woe; 

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. ■* 

And again: 

If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason U) poise another of 
sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to rnost pre- 
posterous conclusions.^ 

Both believed that the influences of evil were more persistent in 
the world than those of goodness. 

' Love's Labor Lost, iv, 3. " Poems. ' U'isdotu 0/ the Ar2cients~Dionysiiis^ 

■* Sonnet cx.xi.x. ^ Othello, i, 3. 



-86 PARALLELISMS. 

Bacon says: 

Those that bring honor into their family are commonly more worthy than most 
that succeed; . . . for ill to man's nature (as it stands perverted) hath a natural 
motion strongest in continuance; but good, as a forced motion, strongest at first.' 

Shakespeare says: 

The evil that men do lives after them, 
The good is oft interred with their bones. - 

And again: 

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues 
We write in water.^ 

Neither writer assented to the belief of the age (since by scien- 
tific tests made a verity) that the condition of the patient's health 
was shown by the appearance of his urine. 

Bacon says: 

Those advertisements which your Lordship imputed to me I hold to be no 
more certain to make judgment upon than a patient's water to a physician." 

In Shakespeare we find the following: 

Falstaff. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? 
Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good, healthy water; but for the 
party that owned it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. 

Both believed that too long a continuance of peace caused the 
people to degenerate. Bacon argued that, as the body of man 
could not remain in health without exercise, the body of a state 
needed exercise also in the shape of foreign wars. He says: 

If it seem strange that I account no state flourishing but that which hath 
neither civil wars nor too lojtg peace, I answer that politic bodies are like our natur- 
al bodies, and must as well have some natural exercise to spend their humors, as 
to be kept from too violent or continual outrages which spend their best spirits." 

And we find the same thought, of the necessity of expelling the 
humors of the body by the exercise of war, in Shakespeare: 

This is the imposthuvie of much loealth and peace. 
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without 
Why the man dies.'' 

Again Bacon says: 

This want of learning hath been in good countries ruined by civil wars, or in 
states corrupted through 7oealth or too great length of peace. "^ 

'Essay. the name of the Earl of Essex — Life 

^Jiilius Ctrsar, ill, 2. and U^orks, vol. ii, p. 12. 

^ Henry VIII., iv, 2. *■ Hamlet, iv, 4. 

■• Letter to Essex concerning Earl of '' Letter to the Earl of Rutland, written in 

Tyrone. the name of the Earl of Essex — Life 

•' Letter to the Earl of Rutland, written in and Works, vol. li, p. 12. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 387 

And in the foregoing we have the very collocation of wealth and 
peace used by Hamlet, and the same thought of corruption at work 
in both cases. 

Shakespeare says: 

This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors and breed ballad- 
makers.' 

And again: 

Discarded, unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted 
tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the lankers of a calm ivorld and a long peace} 

Both writers regarded the period of youth as one of great 

danger. 

Bacon sa3^s: 

For those persons which are of a turbulent nature or appetite do commonly 
pass their youth in many errors; and about their middle, and then and not before, 
they show forth their perfections.'' 

And again: 

He passed that dangerous time of his youth in the highest fortune, and in a 
vigorous state of health.'' 

Shakespeare inakes the same observation: 

Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days, 
Either not assailed, or victor, being charged." 

And this word anibus/i, then an unusual one, is also found in 

Bacon's writings: he speaks '^ of the Sphynx "lying in ambiisli for 

travelers." 

We find a group of identities in reference to the use of intoxi- 
cating drinks. These I have already given in the chapter on "The 
Purposes of the Plays." 

But while both condemned drunkenness they agreed in believ- 
ing that, within reasonable limits, the use of intoxicating liquors 
strengthened and elevated the race. 

Bacon says: 

The use of wine in dry and consumed bodies is hurtful: in vioist and full bodies 
it is good. The cause is, for that the spirits of the wine do, prey upon the dew or 
radical moisture, as they call it, of the body, and so deceive the animal s/>iri/s. 
But where there is moisture enough or superfluous, there wine helpeth to digest, and 
desiccate the Dwisture? 

' Coriolamis, iv, 5. < In Praise of Henry Prince 0/ Wales. 

- 1st Henry /I'., iv, 2. ^ Sonnet l.xx. 

' Civil Character 0/ A ugiisius Cmsar. * Wisdom of the A ncients — Sphynx. 

' Natural History, S 727. 



388 PARALLELISMS. 

And again: 

I see France, Italy or Spain have not taken into use beer or ale; which, per- 
hcips if they did, would better both their healths and their co/>ip/exioiis.^ 

And Shakespeare puts into the moiitli of Falstaff, who was 

"moist and full" enough, in a state of ''constant dissolution and 

thaw," as he said himself, the same opinion: 

A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the 
brain; dries me there ail the foolish and dttll and cr7i(tv 7'a/io!-s v/hich enViron \t. . . . 
It illuminateth the face; which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this 
little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners, the inland petty spirits, 
muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this reti- 
nue, doth any deed of courage.^ 

Here we have the same belief as to the virtues of wine, and the 
same reason, the drying or desiccating of the superfluous humors; 
and in both cases we have the belief that the spirits of the man are 
acted upon by the wine — a belief we shall touch upon hereafter. 
And in Bacon we will find another reference to this ascending of 
the spirits into the head. He says: 

The vapors which were gathered by sitting fly more up into the head.'' 

But the identity of belief upon this point goes still farther. 

Each writer held to the opinion that the children of drunken men 

were more likely to be females than males. Bacon says: 

It hath been observed by the ancients, and is yet believed, that the sperm of 
drunken men is unfruitful. The cause is, for that it is over-moistened and 
wanteth spissitude; and we have a merry saying, that they that go drunk to bed 

get daughters.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

There's never any of these demure boys come to any proof; for their drink 
doth so overcool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a 
kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. . . . 
If I had a thousand sons, the first principle I would teach them should be, to for- 
swear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.'' 

And again: 

He was gotten in drink. Is not the humor conceited? 
His mind is not heroic, and there's the humor of it.® 

And we find the same thought, that great vigor and vitality 
causes the offspring to be masculine in gender, in Macbeth's 
exclamation to Lady Macbeth: 

1 Natural History, % 705. ^ Natural History, § 734. ^2(1 Henry I]'., iv, 3. 

2^rf Henry H '., iv, 3. •• IImcI., § 723. " Me>-ry Il'irrs 0/ II indsor, i, 2. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 389 

Bring forth men children only, 
For thy undaunted mettle should compose 
Nothing but males.' 

Both writers recognize the vast superiority of the intellectual 
forces over the bodily. 
Bacon says: 

The mind is the man. ... A man is but what he knoweth.' 

Shakespeare has the same thought: 

In nature there's no blemish, but the iniud.^ 
'Tis the iiiiiid that makes the body rich.^ 
I saw Othello's visage in his ntind} 

Bacon says: 

Pain and danger be great only by opinion.' 

Shakespeare says: 

For there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." 

The discrimination which we find in Shakespeare between appe- 
tite and digestion, and their relations one to another, reappears in 
Bacon. 

Macbeth says: 

Now good digestion wait on appetite, 
And health on both.^ 

Bacon speaks of 

Appetite, which is the spur of digestion.' 

Both writers believed that the strict course of justice shotild be 

moderated by mercy. 

Bacon says:- : 

He [the King] must always resemble Him whose'great name he beareth . . . 
in manifesting the sweet influence of his mercy on the severe stroke of his justice.'" 

And again: 

In causes of life and death, judges ought (as far as the law permitteth) in justice 
to remember merc}', and to cast a severe eye upon the example, but a merciful eye 
upon the person." 



' Macbeth^ i, 7. ' Letter to the Earl of Rutland, written in 

^ Praise of Knowledge. the name of the Earl of Essex. 

' Twelfth Nighty iii, 4. ' Hamlet, ii, 2. 

* Taming of the Shretv, iv, 3. * Macbeth, iii, 4. 

* Othello, i, 3. 9 History of Life and Death. 

^'"B.^^&Y Of a King. 
" Essay Of fudicaturr. 



-QO PARALLELISMS. 

The same humane spirit is manifested in tlie Shakespeare 

writings: 

II is ail attribute to God himself; 

And earthly power doth then show likest (iod's 

When mercy seasons justice.' 

And again: 

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the k"<-1s ? 
Draw near them, then, in being merciful. - 

And again: 

Alas, alas ! 
Why, all the souls that are were forfeit once; 
And He that might the vantage best have took 
Found out the remedy: How would you be, 
If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
But judge you as you are? Oh, think on that; 
And mercy then will breathe within your lips 
Like man new made.^ 

Both were keenly alive to the purity and sweetness of the 
atmosphere. 

In his History of Life and Death ^ Bacon discusses "the healthful- 
ness of the air" and the modes of testing its purity, as by exposing, 
a lock of wool or a piece of flesh, etc. 

He says in another place: 

At Gorhambury there is sweet air if any is.* 

And again: 

The discovery of the disposition of the air is good . . . for the choice of 
places to dwell in; at the least for lodges and retiring-places for health. •> 

And in the same chapter in which he discusses the purity of the 

air in dwelling-houses and the mode of ascertaining it, he refers to 

birds: 

Which use to change countries at certain seasons, if they come earlier, do show 
the temperature of weather according to that country whence they came.' 

For prognostics of weather from living creatures, it is to be noted', that 
creatures that live in the open air, sub dio, must needs have a quicker impression 
from the air than men that live most within doors; and especially birds, that live 
in the air freest and clearest.* 

And again he notes that 

Kites flying aloft show fair and dry weather, . . . ff)r that they mount most 
into the air of that temper wherein they delight.* 

'^ Merchant pf l'enict\\\,\. ""gaQietc. ' Ibid., §8i6. 

^ Titus Andronictts, i, 2. ^ Letter to Buckingham, 1619. ^ Ibid., §822. 

' Measure /or Measure^ ii, 2. • Natural History, § 808. ' Ibid., § 824. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 



391 



And we have the same set of thoughts — the sweetness of the 
air in special places, and the delight of birds in pure air — in the 
famous words uttered by Duncan and Banquo: 

Duncan. This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air 
Nimbly and gently recommends itself 
Unto our senses. 

Banqiio. This guest of summer, 

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, 
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath 
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, 
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird 
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: 
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed 
The air is delicate.' 

Both refer to the effect of terror upon the rising of the hair. 
Bacon says: 

The passions of the mind work upon the body the impressions following: fear 
causeth paleness, trembling, the standing of Hw hair upright, starting and shriek- 
ing} 

Shakespeare says: 

The time has been, my senses would have cooled 
To hear a r{\^\.-shriek; and my fell of hair 
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir 
As life were in 't.'^ 

Both, while to some extent fatalists, believed that a man pos- 
sesses to a large extent the control over his own fortune. 
Bacon says: 

Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.'* 

And again : 

It is not good to fetch fortune from the stars.^ 

While Shakespeare says: 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.'' 

And curiously enough, both drew the same conclusions as to 
reading character by personal appearance, while they held that, 
as Shakespeare says : 

There's no art 
To read the mind's construction in the face.'' 

1 Macbeth, i, 6. » Macbeth, v, 5. ^ History of Henry I 'II. 

"^ Natural History, §713. ■• Essay Of Fortune. ^ Jidius Ccrsar, i, 2. 

■' Macbeth, i, i. 



39- 



PARALLELISMS. 



And again : 

No more can you distinguish of a man 

Than of his outward show, which, God he knows, 

Seldom, or never, jumpeth with the heart.' 

And Bacon arafued : 

Neither let that be feared which is said, Fronti nulla fides: which is meant of 
a general outward behavior, and not of the private and subtle motions and labors 
of the countenance and gesture. - 

And this distinction, between the revelations made by the mere 
cast or shape or controlled attitudes of the face, and the expres- 
sions of the face or motions of the body, appears in Shakespeare: 

There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gestures.^ 

Again we find it in Ulysses' wonderful description of Cressida: 

Fie, fie upon her ! 
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip. 
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out 
At every joint and motive [motion?] of her body.'* 

And we find Bacon observing: 

For every passion doth cause, in the eyes, face and gesture, certain indecent 
and ill-seeming, apish and deformed motions.-' 

And again he says: 

So in all physiognomy the lineaments of the body will discover those natural 
inclinations of the mind which dissimulation will conceal or discipline will 
suppress.'' 

And we find Shakespeare putting into the mouth of King John 
these words, descriptive of Hubert: 

Hadst thou not been by, 
A fellow by the hand of riature marked. 
Quoted and signed to do a deed of shame.' 

And Bacon says: 

For Aristotle hath very ingeniously and diligently handled the features of the 
body, but not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by art, 
and of greater use and advantage. For the lineaments of the body do disclose the 
disposition and inclination of the mind in general, but the motions of the counte- 
nance and parts do not only so, but do further disclose the oresent humor and state 
of the mind and will.® 

And in this connection we find another parallelism. Bacon 

says: 

It is necessary to use a steadfast countenance, not wavering with action, as in 



' Richard 1 1 [., iii, i. 

^ Advancement of Learnings book ii. 

3 Winter' s Tale, v, 2. 

■* Troiliis nnii Cress /liit, iv, 5. 



^ JVisciom 0/ the Aticients — Dionysitis. 

^ Natural History, cent. i.x. 

' King John, iv, 2. 

^ Advancement oj" Learning; book ii. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. -<nx 

moving the head or ha)id loo much, which shovveth a fantastical, light and fickle 
spirit.' 

And Hamlet, in his instructions to the players, says: 
Nor do not saw the air too much — your hand thus; but use all gently. - 

Both had the same high admiration for the capacity to bear 

misfortunes with patience and self-control. 

Bacon says: 

Yet it is a greater dignity of mind to hear evils by fortitude and judgment than 
by a kind of absenting and alienation of the mind from things present to things 
future, for that it is to hope. ... I do judge a state of mind which in all doubtful 
expectations is settled and floateth not, and doth this out of good government 
and composition of the affections, to be one of the principal supporters of man's 
life; but that assurance and repose of the mind which only rides at anchor tij>07i 
hope, I do reject as wavering and weak.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

For thou hast been 
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; 
A man that fortune's "bufifets and rewards 
Has ta'en with equal thanks; and blessed are those 
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled 
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger 
To sound what stop she please.^ 

And the expression of Bacon quoted above, "the mind which 
only rides at anchor upon hope," is paralleled in Shakespeare: 

If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, 

Be anchored in the bay where all men ride.* 

Both believed in the universal presence and power of goodness. 
Ba:on said: 

The inclination to goodness is deeply implanted in the nature of man; inso- 
much, that if it issue not toward man it will take unto other living creatures.*' 

And again: 

There is formed in everything a double nature of good." 
And again: 

For the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good, as reason doth.'* 

Shakespeare has: 

There is some soul of goodness in things evil 
Would men observingly distill it out.'* 

' Civil Conversations. ^ Sonnet c.x.xxvii. 

" Hamlet, iii, 2. e Essay Of Goodness. 

* Med. Sacrce — Of Earthly Ho/>e. ' Advancement of Learning, book ii. 

'^Hamlet, iii, 2. ^Vo\A. 

'■' I li-nry I '., iv, i. 



394 PARALLELISMS. 

And again: 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
Sermons in stones, and good in cj'ciytliing-} 

Bacon says: 

And we willingly place the history of arts among the species of natural history, 
because there have obtained a now inveterate mode of speaking and notion, as if 
art were something different from nature, so that things artificial ought to be dis- 
criminated from things natural, as if wholly and generically distinct. , . . And 
there has insinuated into men's minds a still subtler error, namely this, that art is 
conceived to be a sort of addition to nature, the proper effect of which is mere words 
and rhetorical ornament.'^ 

Shakespeare has the following: 

Perdita. For I have heard it said. 

There is an art which in their piedness shares 

With great creating nature. 

Polixenes. Say there be; 

Yet nature is made better by no mean. 

But nature makes that mean; so. o'er that art. 

Which vou say adds to nature, is an art that nature makes. 

Here we have, in the same words, a reference to an opinion, 
held by others, that art is an addition to nature, and a dissent from it 
by the writer, in each case. 

And that other thought, that man's art shares with God the 
creative force and faculty. Judge Holmes shows had also occurred 
to Bacon: 

Art or man is added to the universe; and it must almost necessarily be con- 
cluded that the human soul is endowed \\\\h providence, not without the example, 
intention and authority of the greater providence.^ 

That is to say, that man is a sort of a deputy of God to carry 
forward the work of creation. 

And we find Shakespeare alluding, in the same spirit, to "the 
providence that's in a watchful state,"' as if "the human soul," gov- 
erning the state, "was endowed with providence." 

And we find the same thought, that man is a species of lesser 
God, to whom the creative force has been delegated, expressed 
again in these lines: 

We, Hermia, like (wo artificial gods. 

Have with our needles created both one flower. 

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion.^ 

> As You Like It, ii, i. ^ Ardhorship o/S/iak., p. 5x2. 

^ Intell. Globe, chapter iii. * Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. 

^ Midsuiniiier Niglifs Dreatn, i, 2. 



IDENTICAL OPINIONS. 395 

Both believed that sickness or weakness left the mind open 

to the influence of external spirits. Bacon says: 

So much more in impressions from mind to mind, or from spirit to spirit, the 
impression taketh, but is encountered and overcome by the mind and spirit. 
. . . And, therefore, they work most upon 7ocak minds and spirits, as those of 
women, sick persons, superstitious and fearful persons.' 

Shakespeare makes Hamlet say: 

The spirit that I have seen 
May be the devil; and the devil hath power 
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps, 
Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 
(As he is very potent with such spirits), 
Abuses me to damn me.- 

Here we have precisely the same idea. 

The author of A New Study of Shakespeare, Mr. W. F. C. Wigston, 
calls attention to the following parallelism. 
Bacon says: 

It is evident that the dullness of men is such, and so infelicitous, that when 
things are put before their feet, they do not see them, unless admonished, but 
pass on. 

Shakespeare says: 

The jewel that we find we stoop and take it, 
Because we see it; but what we do not see 
We tread upon, and never think of it.' 

Both had observed the fear that men have of making their wills 
until the last moment. 
Bacon says: 
When their will is made they think themselves nearer the grave than before. ■* 

In Shakespeare we find the following: 

Slender. Now, good Mistress Anne. 

Anne. What is your will ? 

Slender. My will? Ods-hart-lings, that's a pretty jest indeed. I ne'er made 
my will yet, I thank Heaven: I am not such a sickly creature, I give Heaven 
praise.^ 

Mrs. Pott calls attention to the following parallelism. 

Bacon has in his Promus this note: 

It is in action as it is in ways; commonly the nearest is the foulest." 

• Natural History, § goi. < Essay Of Death. 

"^ Hamlet, ii, 2. ^ Merry Wives 0/ Il'/intsnr, iii, 4. 

^ Measure /or Measure, \\, I. ^ Pro»!ns,'Ho. $1,2. 



.39^ 



PARALLELISMS. 



Shakespeare has it: 

[Your heart] is too full of the milk of human kindness 
To catch the nearest way.' 

That is, tlie foul way of murder, which was the nearest way to 

the crown. 

I might continue this chapter to greater length; but I think I 
have given enough to show that the same wonderful parallelism 
which exists between the forms of expression in the two sets of 
writings extends also to the opinions and beliefs set forth therein. 

It will, of course, be easy for a dishonest mind to treat these 
parallelisms as Richard Grant White did those in Mrs. Pott's 
Promus — that is, ignore the strongest ones, and select the least 
striking and put them forth as the strongest. But in the long run 
truth is not to be arrested by such tricks, nor can a great argument 
±)e conducted by men who are mean enough to resort to them, 

^ Macbeth y i, 2. 



CHAPTER IV. 

IDENTICAL QUOTA rroXS. 

And these same thoughts people this Httle world. 

Richard II., '!\j- 

IF the two minds were one, if they thought the same thoughts, 
and employed the same comparisons and expressions, it might 
be that we would find them quoting the same things from the 
same books. 

I remember a few instances of this kind, and many more might 
be found b}' a diligent examination of the two sets of writings. 
Bacon says: 

In this they fall into the error described in the ancient fable, in which the 
other parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it neither 
performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head doth; but 
yet, notwithstanding, it is the stomach that digesteth and distributeth to all the 
rest.' 

In Shakespeare we have the following: 

There was a time when all the body's members 

Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it: 

That only like a gulf it did remain 

r the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, 

Still cupboarding the viands, never bearing 

Like labor with the rest; where the other instruments 

Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, 

And mutually participate; did minister 

Unto the appetite and affection common 

Of the whole body. The belly answered, . . . 

" True it is, my incorporate friends," quoth he, 

" That I receive the general food at first. 

Which you do live upon: and fit it is; 

Because I am the storehouse and the shop 

Of the whole body. But, if you do remember, 

I send it through the rivers of your blood 

Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain, 

And through the cranks and offices of man: 

The strongest nerves, and small inferior veihs, 

From me receive that natural competency 

Whereby they live."^ 

' Advancetnent o/ Learning, book ii. ^ Coriolamis, i, i. 

397 



398 



PARALLELISMS. 



And here I would refer to the anecdote which Bacon tells in his 

Apophthegms: 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, being appointed a judge for the northern circuit, . . . was, 
by one of the malefactors, mightily importuned to save his life, which, when nothing 
that he had said did avail, at length desired his mercy on the account of kindred. 
' ' Prjnhee," said my lord Judge, ' ' how came that in ? " " Why, if it please you, my 
lord, your name is Bacon and mine is Hog, and in all ages hog and bacon have 
been so near kindred that they are not to be separated." " Ay, but," replied Judge 
Bacon, " you and I cannot be kindred except you be hanged, for hog is not bacon 
until it be well hanged." 

Shakespeare has this: 

Evans. I pray you, have remembrance, child: Acciisativo, hung, hang, hog. 
Quickly. Hang hog is Latiri for Bacon. I warrant you.' 

Bacon says: 

Such men in other men's calamities are, as it were, in season, and are ever on 
the loading part; not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores, but like flies 
that are still buzzing. '- 

Shakespeare says: 

Ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth; where the glutton's dogs licked his 
sores. ^ 

Bacon says: 

Philo Judsus saith that the sense is like the sun; for the sun seals up the 
globe of heaven [the stars] and opens the globe of earth; so the sense doth obscure 
heavenly things and reveals earthly things.^ 

When Lorenzo contemplates the heavens by night, thick ''inlaid 

with patines of bright gold," he speaks of the music of the spheres, 

and adds: 

.Such harmony is in immortal souls. 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in. we cannot hear it.^ 



Bacon says: 

For of lions it is a received belief that their fury and fierceness ceaseth toward 
anything that yieldeth and prostrateth itself. ** 

Shakespeare has the following: 

Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you, 



And again: 



Which better fits a lion than a man." 

For 'tis the nature of that noble beast 

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.^ 



' Merry Wives cf Windsor , iv, i, 
^ Essay Of Goodness. 
' 1st Henry II'., iv, 2. 
•* Apo/>litliegnis. 



'•' Merchant of I'enicc, v, i. 

" Med. Sacrce — Exaltation of CJiarity, 

' Troilus and Cressida, v, 3. 

" As You Like It, iv, 3. 



ID EN TIC A L QUOTA TIONS. 



399 



Bacon says: 



But these three are the true stages of knowledge, which, to those that are puffed 
up with their own knowledge and rebellious against God, are indeed no better than 
the giant's three hills: 

" Ter sunt co)iati iiii/>ouriy Tclio Ossaiii, 
Scilicet a tque Ossa: frondosuni i)ivolverc Oly/upuin." 
[Mountain on /noun tain thrice they strove to heap: 
Olympus, Ossa, piled on Pcliojis steep.] ' 

And we find Shakespeare employing the same quotation: 

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead; 
Till of this fiat a mountain you have made, 
To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head 
Of old Olympus. . . . 

Till our ground. 
Singeing his pate against the burning zone, 
Make Ossa like a wart.- 

Here we have the three mountains natTied in the quotation — 
Olympus, Pelion, Ossa— and the comparison in bjDth cases is that 
of piling one on top of the other. 



Describing the chameleon, Bacon says: 

He fccdctli not only upon the air, though that he his principal sustenance.'* 

Again; 

And so feed her [the Queen] with expectation.'' 

We turn to Shakespeare, and we find the following: 

A7;/^.^ How fares our cousin Hamlet ? 

JIai/i. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish; I eat the air, promise- 
crammed. You cannot feed capons so.'' 

Bacon says: 

And therefore the poet doth elegantly call passions tortures, that urge men to 
confess their secrets. 

Shakespeare says: 

Better be with the dead. 
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, 
Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
In restless ecstacy." 

Bacon has the following: 

It was both pleasantly and wisely said ... by a Pope's nuncio, returning 
from a certain nation where he served as lieger; whose opinion being asked touch- 

' De Augmcntis, book iii. ■« Letter to Esse.x, October 4, 1596. 

2 Hamlet, v, i. » Hamlet, iii, 2. 

' Natural History, % 360. <■• Macbeth, iii, 2. 



400 rARALLELlS.y.S. 

ing the appointment of one to go in his place, he wished that in any case they did 
not send one that was too wise; because no very wise man would even imagine 
what they in that country were like to do.' 

While Shakespeare puts the same quotation thus: 

Handel. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England ? 

1st Clo'cvit. Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or, if 
he do not, it is no great matter there. 
Hamlet. Why ? 
ist Clown. 'Twill not be seen in him; there the men are as mad as he.' 

In The IVisdoi/i of the Ancients Bacon quotes the fable of Orpheus, 
and says: 

So great was the power and alluring force of this harmony, that he drew the 
woods and moved the very stones to come and place themselves in an orderly and 
decent fashion about him. 

Shakespeare says: 

Therefore, the poet 

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; 

Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage 

But music for a time doth change his nature.^ 

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews, 
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones.^ 

Judge Holmes calls attention to the following instance. 

In Plutarch's Life of Antony is told the story of Timon's tree. 

North's translation reads as follows: 

Ye men of Athens, in a court-yard belonging to my house grows a large 
fig-tree, on which many an honest citizen has been pleased to hang himself: now, 
as I have thought of building upon that spot, I could not omit giving you this pub- 
lic notice, to the end that if any more among you have a mind to make the same 
use of my tree, they may do it speedily before it is destroyed. 

Bacon alludes to this story as follows, in his essay Of Goodness r 

Misanthropi that make it their practice to bring men to the bough, and yet 
have never a tree for the purpose in their gardens, as Timon had. 

While Shakespeare, in the play of Timon of Athens^" says: 

Tivion. I have a tree which grows here in my close, 

That mine own use invites me to cut down. 

And shortly must I sell it. Tell my friends, 

Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree. 

From high to low throughout, that whoso please 

To stop afifliction, let him take his haste, 

Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe. 

And hang himself. 

' Advancement o/ Learning, book ii. ' .Merchant of Venice ^ v, i. 

"^ Hamlet y v, i. * Tzvo Gentlemen of Verona, iii, 2 

*Act iv, scene i. 



IDENTICAL QUOTATIONS. 401 

Henry Lewis, in his Essays of Bacon, points out an instance 

where the two writers refer to the same incident. Bacon, in his 

essay Of Prophecies, says: 

Henry VI. of England said of Henry VH., when he was a lad, and gave him 
water, "This is the /(?r/ shall enjoy the crown for which we strive." 

In Shakespeare we find the same event thus alluded to: 

Come hither, England's hope. If secret powers 
Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts, 
This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss, . . . 
Likely, in time, to bless a regal throne.' 

The same author also calls attention to this parallelism. In the 
same essay Of Prophecies Bacon refers to 

A phantasm that appeared to M. Brutus in his tent, and said to him, Philippine 
interum me videbis — (Thou shalt see me again at Philippi). 

Shakespeare, in Julius Ccesar, has: 

Brutus. Speak to me what thou art. 

Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus. 

Brutus. Why comest thou ? 

Ghost. To tell thee, thou shalt see me at Philippi.^ 

Aristotle says : 

Usury is merely money ooru of money; so that of all means of money-making 
this is the most contrary to nature. * 

Bacon quotes this; he says: 

It is against nature for money to I'cgct money. ^ 

Shakespeare also quotes it : 

When did friendship take 
A breed oi barren metal of his friend?^ 

Bacon says: 

There is an observation among country people, that years of store of haws 
and hips do commonly portend cold winters; and they ascribe it to God's provi- 
dence, that, as the Scripture saith, reacheth even to ihe falling of a sparrow.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

There's a ^'p^c\2i\. providence in they'«//of a sparrow.^ 

And again: 

He that doth the ravens feed, 
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow.' 

Bacon says: 

The wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.* 

^Jd Henry I'/., iv, 6. = Essay Oy Usury. 5 ]^atural History, § 737. 

"^Julius Ccpsar, iv, 3. •• Merchant 0/ Venice, i, 3. " Hamlet, v, 2. 

''As You Like It, ii, 3. " Essay Of ]Visdotn. 



402 PARALLELISMS. 

Shakespeare says: 

As the mournful crocodile 
With sorrow snares relenting passengers.' 

Bacon, referring to a popular belief, says: 

This was the end of this little cockatrice of a king [Perkin Warbeck], that was 
able to destroy those that did not espy him first.^ 

Shakespeare alludes to the same superstition: 

They will kill one another by the look, like cockatrices."^ 

Shall poison more 
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.^ 

A cockatrice hast thou hatched to the world. 
Whose unavoided eye is murtherous?^ 

Bacon says: 

The parable of Pythagoras is dark hut true. Cor ne edito — (eat not the 
heart).* 

Shakespeare says: 

I sup upon myself, 
And so shall starve with feeding^ 

The canker ^;/(?7i:' thy heart.^ 

Bacon says: 

Princes many times make themselves desires and set their hearts upon a toy, 
... as Nero for playing on the harp.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero, 
Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.'" 

Bacon tells this story: 

Periander, being consulted with how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid 
the messenger attend and report what he saw him do; and went into his garden 
and topped all the highest flowers, signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and 
keeping low of the nobility and grandees." 

Shakespeare plainly alludes to the same story in the following: 

Go thou, and, like an executioner, 
Cut off the head of too-fast-growing sprays, 
That look too lofty in our commonwealth: 
All must be even in our government. '- 



^ Set Ilejtry I'l., iii, i. ^ Ku hard III., iv, i. 'Essay Of Empire. 

' History of Henry I'll. • Essay O/ Friendsliip. '" ist Henry I'l., i, 4. 

' Twelfth Niglit, iii. 4. ' Coriolanus, iv, 2. " Advancement of Learnitig., book ii. 

* Romeo and futiet, iii, 2. ^ Timon of Athens, '\s, -i,. ^^ Richard II., '\\\, ^. 



IDENTICAL QUOTATIONS. 403 

Bacon quotes: 

It is not granted to man to love and be wise.' 
And again: 

Therefore it was well said " that it is impossible to love and be wise.* 
Shakespeare says: 

To be wise and love, exceeds man's might. ^ 

Bacon saj's: 

For, aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell."* 
And again: 

For from the desire of power the angels fell.* 
Shakespeare says: 

Hy that sin fell the angels." 

Bacon uses this quotation: 

Cardinal Wolsey said that if he had pleased God as he pleased the King, he 
had not been ruined.'' 

Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the same Cardinal Wolsey 

these words: 

O Cromwell, Cromwell, 
Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
I served my King, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies.* 

Mr. R. M. Theobald, in the August, 1887, number of Xhe Journal 
of the Bacon Society of London, page 157, gives us the following 
extraordinary parallelism, where both writers clearly refer to the 
same terrible story 

Bacon, in the De Ang7nentis, says : 

What a proof of patience is displayed in the story told of Anaxarchus, who, 
when questioned under torture, bit out his own tongue (the only hope of informa- 
tion), and spat it into the face 0/ the tyrant. 

While in Shakespeare we tind the same story alluded to. In 
Richard II., i, i, Bolingbroke, being invited by the King to recon- 
cile himself to Mowbray, and throw down Mowbray's gage of bat- 
tle which he had picked up, replies: 



' Ad7'anccment of Learnings book ii. 

2 Essay Of Love. 

' Troilus and Cressida, iii, 2. 

^ Advancement iif Learning, book ii. 



^ Preface to Great Instauration. 

^ Henry VIIL, iii, 2. 

■" Letter to King James. September 5, 1621. 

'■Henry flH., iii, 4. 



404 PARALLELISMS, 

O God, defend my soul from such foul sin ! 

, . . Ere my tongue 
Shall wound mine honor with such feeble wrong, 
Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear 
The slavish motive of recanting fear, 
And spit it bleeding, in his high disgrace, 
Where shame doth harbor, even in Mowbray s face. 

The play of Richard II. was published in 1597, and Bacon's De 
Augmeiitis in 1623; consequently Shakespeare did not borrow from 
Bacon. Mr. Theobald says: 

The story is derived from Diogenes Laertius; Bacon's version is taken from 
Pliny or Valerius Maximus. . . . Where did Shakspere pick up the allusion? 
Perhaps Pliny and Valerius Maximus and Diogenes Laertius were text-books at 
the grammar school of Stratford-on-Avon ! 

Bacon, in his Natural History, says: 

There was an Egyptian soothsayer that made Antonius believe that his genius, 
which otherwise was brave and confident, was, in the presence of Octavius Caesar, 
poor and cowardly; and therefore he advised him to absent himself as much as 
he could, and remove far from him. This soothsayer was thought to be suborned 
by Cleopatra, to make him live in Egypt and other remote places from home.' 

And the same fact is referred to in Shakespeare. Macbeth says, 

speaking of Banquo: 

There is none but he 
Whose being I do fear: and under him 
My genius is rebuked; as, it is said, 
Mark Antony's was by Caesar. 

And in Antony and Cleopatra we have the very Egyptian sooth- 
sayer referred to : 

Antony. Say to me. 

Whose fortune shall rise higher, Ccesar's or mine? 
Soothsayer. Caesar's. 

Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side: 
Thy daemon (that's thy spirit which keeps thee) is 
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable. 
Where Caesar's is not; but near him thy angel 
Becomes a Fear, as being overpowered; therefore 
Make space enough between you.- 

Bacon says: 

What new hope hath made them return to their Sinon's note, in teaching Troy 
how to save itself.* 

Shakespeare alludes to the same fact, thus: 
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.'' 

" Natural History, cent, x, § 940. ' Speech in Parliament. 

^Antony and Cleopatra, ii, 3. * 3't /tony T/., iii, 2. 



IDENTICAL QUOTATIONS. ^05 

Bacon says: 

Aristotle dogmatically assigned the cause of generation to the sun. 

Shakespeare has it: 

If the sun breed maggots out of a dead dog. Have you a daughter? . . . Let 
her not walk in the sun. Conception is a blessing. Etc' 

Bacon speaks of 

The ancient opinion that man was a micnnosmus, an abstract or model of the 
world.*' 

And Shakespeare alludes to the same thing: 

You will see it in the map of my microcosm.''' 

Bacon says: 

Report has much prevailed of a stone bred in the head of an old and great 
toad.* 

Shakespeare says: 

Like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Bears yet a precious jewel in its head." 

Bacon speaks of taking- the advantage of opportunity in the fol- 
lowing words: 

For occasion (as it is in the common verse) turneth a bald noddle after she has 
presented her locks in front, and no hold taken." 

Shakespeare says: 

Let's take the instant by the forward top — for we are old.'' 

Bacon says: 

For although Aristotle, as though he had been of the race of the Ottomans, 
thought he could not reign unless he killed off all his brethren.^ 

Shakespeare puts into the mouth of King Henry V. this address 
to his brothers : 

This is the English, not the Turkish court; 
Not Amurah an Amurah succeeds, 
But Harry, Harry. ^ 

Bacon in his Apophthegius tells this story: 

The Queen of Henry IV. of France was great with child; Count .Soissons, that 

1 Hamlet, ii, 2. 5 j ^ j-,„ j^;/^.^, j^^ \\^ ,_ 

'^Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. " Essay O/ Delays. 

' Coriolanus, ii, i. ' All's Well that Ends Well, v, 3. 

^ Inquisition of the Conz'ersioti of Bodies. ' Advancement of Learnimr. book ii. 

'■' 2d Henry 11 '., v, 2. 



4o6 



PARALLELISMS. 



had his expectation upon the crown, when it was twice or thrice thought that the 
yueen was with child before, said to some of his friends "that it was but with a 
pillow," etc. 

Shakespeare must have had this story in his mind when, in 

describing Doll Tearsheet being taken to be whipped, he speaks as 

follows: 

Hostess. Oh that Sir John were come, he would make this a bloody day to 
somebody. But I would the fruit of her womb might miscarry. 

Officer. If it do, you shall have a dozen cushions; you have but eleven now.' 

Bacon says: 

Question was asked of Demosthenes what was the chief part of an orator? He 
answered. Action. What next ? Action. What next, again? Action. A strange 
thing that that part of an orator which is but superficial, and rather the virtue of a 
player, should be placed so high above those other noble parts of invention, elocu- 
tion, and the rest; nay, almost alone, as if it were all in all. But the reason is 
plain. There is in human nature, generally, more of the fool than the inise; and 
therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men's minds is taken are 
most potent. - 

Shakespeare refers to the same story and gives the same ex- 
planation in the following: 

For in such business 
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant 
More learned than their ears.^ 

In Henry V. the Bishop of Exeter makes a comparison of gov- 
ernment to the subordination and harmony of parts in music: 

For government, though high and low and lower, 
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, 
Congruing in a full and natural close 
Like music. 

Some have sought to find the origin of this simile in Cicero, 
De Republica, but that book was lost to literature and unknown, 
except by name, until Angelo Mai discovered it upon a palimpsest 
in the Vatican in 1822. 

Its real source is in the apophthegm repeatedly quoted by 

Bacon as to Nero: 

Vespasian asked of Apollonius what was the cause of Nero's ruin. Who 
answered: "Nero could tune the harp well, but in government he did always 
wind up the strings too high or let them down too /cTf."'* 

^ zd Henry IV., v, 4. ' Coriolaniis, iii, 2. 

" Essay Of Boldness. * Apophthegm 51. 



IDENTICAL QUOTATIONS. 407 

Bacon has this story: 

Queen Isabella of Spain used to say: " Whosoever hath a good presence and a 
good fashion tarries letters of recommendation." ' 

Shakespeare says: 

The beauty that is borne here in the face 
f The bearer knows not, but eom?nends itself 
To others' eye.,.'^ 

Bacon has two anecdotes about the Salic law of France.' He 

says in one of them: 

There was a French gentleman, speaking with an English of the law Salique : 
that women were excluded from inheriting the crown of France. The English 
said: "Yes; but that was meant of the women themselves, not of such males as 
claimed by women," etc. 

And in the play of Hctiry V. we find Shakespeare discussing the 

same Salic law, at great length, and giving many instances to 

show that it did not exclude those who " claimed by women," one 

of which instances is: 

Besides their writers say 
King Pepin, which deposed Childerike, 
Did as their general, being descended 
Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair, 
Make claim and title to the crown of France.'' 

The writer of the Plays had evidently studied the history of this 
law of another country in all its details; — a thing natural enough 
in a lawyer, extraordinary in a play-actor or stage manager. 

Bacon refers to the story of Ulysses' wife thus : 

Aristippus said : That those who studied particular sciences and neglected 
philosophy, were Jike Penelope's wooers, that made love to the waiting-women.* 

Shakespeare also refers to Penelope: 

You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn she spun in Ulysses' 
absence did but fill Ithaca with moths." 

Bacon quotes the story of Icarus: 

I was ever sorry that your Lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting 
Icarus' fortune.'' 

Shakespeare has the following allusion to the same story: 

Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete, 
Thou Icarus. * 

' Apophthegm 99. o Apophthegm 189. 

' Troilus and Crcssida, iii, 3. • Coriolanus, i, 3. 

s Apophthegms 184 and 185. ' Letter to Essex, 1600. 

* Henry /', i, i. 8^^/ Henry VI., iv, 6. 



^oS PARALLELISMS. 

And again: 

And in that sea of blood my boy did drench 
His over-mounting spirit; and there died 
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.' 

And again: 

I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus; 

Thy father Minos, that denied our course; 

The sun that seared the wings of my sweet boy.- 

Bacon says: 

Frascatorius invented a remedy for apoplectic fits, by placing a heated pan at 
some distance around the head, for by this means the spirits that were suffocated 
and congealed in the cells of the brain, and oppressed by the humors, were dilated, 
excited and revived.^ 

And Falstaff seemed to hold the same view, that the disease was 
a torpidity that needed to be roused. He says: 

This apoplexie is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, a sleeping of the blood.-* 

And Bacon, in a letter to the King, at the time of his downfall, 
after describing a violent pain in the back of his head, says : 

And then the little physic [medical learning] I had told me that it must either 
grow to a congelation, and so to a lethargy, and break, and so to a mortal fever or 
sudden death. 

Bacon and Shakespeare both refer to the same fact in connec- 
tion with the assassination of Julius Caesar. Bacon says: 

With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set him 
down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew; and this was the 
man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death: for when Caesar 
would have discharged the Senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a 
dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling 
him he hoped he would not dismiss the Senate till his wife had dreamed a better 
dream. 

In Shakespeare we have Decimus Brutus saying to Coesar: 

Besides, it were a mock 
Apt to be rendered, for some one to say: 
Break up the Senate, till another time. 
When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams. 

And is it not to the soldier Decimus Junius Brutus, and not to 
the great Marcus Junius Brutus, that the poet makes Mark Antony 

* isi Henry VI., iv, 7. ' Hist<'ria Dens, ct Rari. 

^3ii Henry VI., v, 6. ■> -zd Henry IV i, 3. 



IDENTICAL QUOTATIONS. 409 

allude (echoing Bacon's astonishment that the heir of Caesar could 
have participated in his murder) in the following? 

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed, 

And as he plucked his cursed steel away, 

Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it; 

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved 

If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no: 

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. 

Judge, O ye gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. 

And we find in another historical instance the minds of both 

writers, if I may use the expression, dwelling on the same fact. 

Bacon says, in a letter to King James, February 11, 1614: 

And I put the case of the Duke of Buckingham, who said that if the King 
■caused him to be arrested oi treason he would stab him. 

The King here alluded to was Henry VIII., and we find the 
incident thus described in Shakespeare's play of that name. Buck- 
ingham's surveyor is giving testimony against his master. He 

says: 

//"(quoth he) I for this had been committed. 

As to the Toioer, I thought, I would have played 

The part my father meant to act upon 

The usurper Richard; who, being at Salisbury, 

Made suit to come in 's presence, which if granted, 

(As he made semblance of his duty), would 

Have put his knife into hir)i} 

Bacon makes this quotation: 

The kingdom of France ... is now fallen into those calamities, that, as the 
prophet saith, From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no whole 
place.'' 

Shakespeare uses the same quotation: 

Don Pedro. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for from the 
crown of his head to the sole of his foot he is all mirth.''' 

i^ — 

I feel confident that, had I the time and did space permit, I 
could increase this list of identical quotations many-fold. 

It is certain that these two writers not only held the same 
views, employed the same comparisons, used the same expressions, 

' Henry VIII., i, 2. 

'^Observations on a Libel — Life aiut Jl'ortcs, vol. i, p. 160. 

^ Miicli Ado abojit Xothiug, iii, 2. 



4 1 o ' PA A'. I L LEU SMS. 

pursued the same studies and read the same books, but that their 
minds were constructed so exactly alike that the same things, out 
of their reading, lodged in them, and were reproduced for the same 
purposes. 

And these mental twins — these intellectual identities — did not 
seem to know, or even to have ever heard of each other ! 



CHAPTER V. 

IDENTICAL STUDIES. 

Biron. What is the end of study ? 

King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know. 
Biron. Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense ? 
King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense. 

Lovers Labor Lost, /, /. 

MANY men study nothing. They are content with the stock of 
ideas, right or wrong, borrowed from others, with which 
they start into manhood. But of those who seek to penetrate 
beyond their preconceptions into knowledge, no two follow the 
same path and pursue the same subjects. The themes of study 
are as infinitely varied as the construction of human intellects. 
And herein, as in everything else, is manifested the wisdom of the 
great architect, who for every space in the edifice of life has carved 
a stone which fits it precisely. Many, it is true, are the mere rubble 
that fills up the interspaces; others are parts of the frieze orna- 
mented with bass-reliefs of gnomes or angels; others, again, are the 
massive, hidden, humble foundation-blocks on which rests the 
weight of the whole structure. But in God's edifice nothing is 
little, and little can be said to be great. 

And so in life: one man will devote his existence to a study of 
the motions of the heavenly bodies through their incalculable 
spaces; another will give up his whole life to a microscopic investi- 
gation of the wings and limbs of insects. One will soar on golden 
pinions through the magical realms of music; another will pursue 
the dry details of mathematics into their ultimate possibilities: 
a third will sail gloriously, like a painted nautilus, over the liquid 
and shining bosom of poetr}?^; while still another will study 

The doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
With weary lawyers of endless tongues. 

The purpose of life seems to be put upon the creature even 
before creation, and 

Necessity sits on humanity 
Like to the world on Atlas' neck. 
4" 



^12 PARALLELISMS. 

And when we turn to consider what subjects were studied, at. 
the same time, by the writer of the Shakespeare Plays and Francis 
Bacon, we sliall find that identity which could not exist between 
two really distinct intellects. 

In the first place, we are struck with the universality of thought, 
observation and study discoverable in both. Bacon *' took all 
knowledge for his province," and the Shakespeare Plays embrace 
every theme of reflection possible to man: — religion, philosophy, 
science, history, human character, human passions and affections, 
music, poetry, medicine, law, statecraft, politics, worldly wisdom, 
wit, humor — everything. They are oceanic. Every year some 
new explorer drops his dredge a thousand fathoms deep into their 
unconsidered depths, and brings up strange and marvelous forms 
of life where we had looked only for silence and death. 

And when we descend to particulars we find precise identity in 
almost everything. 

I. Music. 

Take the subject of music. This is a theme which compara- 
tively few study, even to-day; and in that almost rude age of Eliz- 
abeth the number must have been greatly less. Neither does it 
necessarily follow that all great men love music and investigate it. 
In fact, the opinion of Shakespeare, that the man who "had no 
music in his soul" was not to be trusted, has provoked a perfect 
storm of adverse criticism.' 

But Bacon's love of music was great. Sir John Hawkins-says: 

Lord Bacon, in his .Vatiira/ I/isfory, has given a great variety of experiments 
touching music, that show him to have not been barely a philosopher, an inquirer 
into the phenomena of sound, but a master of the science of harmony, and very 
intimately acquainted with the precepts of musical education. - 

And Sir John quotes the following from Bacon: 

The sweetest and best harmony is when every part or instrument is not heard 
by itself, but a conflation of them all, which requireth to stand some distance off, 
even as it is in the mixtures of perfumes, or the taking of the smells of several 
flowers in the air. 

On the other luind Richard Grant Wliite says: 
Shakespeare seems to have been a proficient in the art of music' 

^ Knight's S/ia/c, note 7, act v, Merchant of Venice. 

"^ Ifi.'ttcty 0/ Afi/s/c. ^ Life and Genius of Shiik., p. 259. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 



413 



The commentators say that Balthazar, a musician in the service 
of Prince John, in Much Ado about Nothing,^ was probably thus 
named from the celebrated Balthazarini, an Italian performer on 
the violin, who was in great favor at the court of Henry II., of 
France, in 1577. In 1577 William Shakspere was probably going 
to the grammar school in Stratford, aged thirteen years. How 
could he know anything about a distinguished musician at the 
court of France, between which and Stratford there was then less 
intercourse than there is now between Moscow and Australia. But 
Francis Bacon was sent to Paris in 1576, and remained there for 
three years; and doubtless, for he was a lover of music, knew Bal- 
thazarini well, and sought in this way to perpetuate his memory. 
Or it may be that the cipher narrative in iMuch Ado about NotJiing; 
tells some story in which Balthazarini is referred to. 

Bacon devoted many pages in his Natural History" to experi- 
ments in music. He noted that a musical note '\falUug from one 
tone to another" is "delightful," reminding us of 
That strain again ! it hath a dying fa!/.'" 

And he further notes that " the division and quavering, which 
please so much in music, have an agreement with the glittering of 
light, as the moonbeams playing on a wave." ^ 

Who can fail to believe that the same mind which originated 

this poetical image wrote the following ? 

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the nighl 
Become the touches of sweet harmony.^ 

And the following lines — giving the reason of things as a 

philosopher and scholar — are in the very vein of Bacon: 

The cause why music was ordained; 

Was it not to refresh the mind of man. 

After his studies, or his usual pain ? 

Then give me leave to read philosophy, 

And, while I pause, serve in your harmony.* 

Bacon says: 

Voices or consorts of music do make a harmony by mixture. . . . The sweetest 

' Act ii, scene 3. ' Twelfth Night, i, i. ^Merchant of Venice, v, i. 

*Centuryii. ^ Natural History, ccn\..'\\,%\i->,. ^ Taming of the Shrew, lii, i. 



414 P--i RALLELISMS. 

and best harmony is, when every part or instrument is not heard by itself, but a 
conflation of them all. . . . But sounds do disturb and alter the one the other; 
sometimes the one drowning the other and making it not heard; sometimes the 
one jarring with the other and making a confusion ; sometimes the one mingling 
with the other and making a harmony. . . . M'hcre echoes come from several 
parts at the same distance, they must needs make, as it were, a choir of echoes. . . . 
There be many places where you shall hear a number of echoes one after another: 
and it is where there is a variety of hills and moods, some nearer, some farther off." 

Now turn to the following magnificent specimen of word-paint- 
ing, from the M'idsitmmcr Night's Dream : 

We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top. 
And mark the musical confusion 
Of hounds and echo in conjunction. 
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once. 
When in a 7>i<ood oi Crete they bayed the bear, 
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear 
Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves, 
The skies, the fountains, every region near 
Seemed all one mutual cry: I never heard 
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. - 

It may, of course, be said that Bacon's statement of fact in the 
above is bare and barren, compared with the exquisite melody of 
the description given us in the play; but it must be remembered 
that the one is prose and the other poetry; and that the prose of 
the Plays is as inuch prose as is the prose of the Natural History. 
But no man, however perfect his perception of beauty may have 
been, could have given us the description in \.\\q. Midsummer Night's 
Dream unless he had the analytic power to see that the delightful 
effects which his ear realized were caused by a "musical confu- 
sion " of the hounds and the echoes; the groves, skies, fountains 
and everything around flinging back echo upon echo, until the 
whole scene "seemed all one mutual cry," until, in fact, there was 
produced, as Bacon says, "a choir of echoes." And the very words, 
"a choir of echoes," are poetical; they picture the harmonious ming- 
ling of echoes, like the voices of singers, and remind us of the son- 
net, where the p<x't speaks of the trees, deadened by tlie winter, as 

Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 

It seems to me we have here the evidence not only that both 
writers loved music and had studied it, but that they had noted the 
same effects from tlie same cause; for surely Bacon's description of 

1 Xatiirai History, cent. iii. - Midstuittiicr Night's Dreant, iv, i. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. ^i^ 

the ''choir of echoes" from '' a variety of hills and woods " must 
have been based on some such liunting scene as the poet gives us 
with such melodious detail. 

II. (jARDKNlNd. 

« 

Francis Bacon and the writer of the Plays both were tilled with 
a great love for gardening. 

Bacon calls it "the purest of all human pleasures." 
Shakespeare, as Mrs. Pott has shown, refers to thirty-five dif- 
ferent flowers: 

Anemone, carnation, columbine, cornflower, cowslip, crown-imperial, crow- 
flower, daffodil, daisy, eglantine, flower-de-luce, fumitory, gilly-flower, hare-bell, 
honeysuckle, ladies' smocks, lavender, lilies, long purples, marigold, marjorum, 
myrtle, oxlips, pansies or love in idleness, peony, pimpernal, pink, primrose, rose 
"may," rose "must," rose "damask," rosemary, thyme, violet, woodbine.' 

Mrs. Pott says: 

These thirty-five flowers are all noted or studied by Bacon, with the exception 
of the columbine, pansy and long-purples. The hare-bell may be considered as 
included in the "bell-flowers," which he describes. Twentv-otw of these same 
tfnrty-five Shakespearean flowers are einimerated by Bacon in his essav Of Gardens. 

And this coincidence is the more remarkable when it is remem- 
bered that these flowers were but a small part of those well-known 
in the days of Shakespeare and Bacon. In all the notes on garden- 
ing, in Bacon's writings, there are only five flowers which are not 
named by Shakespeare, while of Ben Jonson's list of flowers only 
half are ever alluded to by Bacon. 

Mrs. Pott points out that Bacon was tlie first writer that ever 
distinguished flowers by the season of their blooming; and Shake- 
speare follows this order precisely and never brings the flowers of 
one season into another, as Jonson and other poets do. In the 
midst of exquisite poetry he accurately associates the flower with 
the month to which it belongs. He says: 

Daffodils that come before the swallow dares 
And take the winds of March with beauty. - 

Says Bacon: 

For March there come violets, especially the single blue, which are the earliest.-' 
> Shakespearlann, May, 1885, p. 241. ^ U'inter's Tale, iv, 3. ^ Essay Of Gardens. 



4x6 PA RA LLELISMS. 

And again: 

Thy banks with peonies and lilies brims, 
Which spongy April stX thy hest betrims.' 

And again the poet says: 

O rose of May, dear maid, kind sister. 

In all this the poet shows the precision of the natural philos- 
opher. 

The whole article here quoted, from the pen of Mrs. Pott, can 
be read with advantage and pleasure. 

Bacon studied gardening in all its details. His love for flowers 
was great. Even in his old age, when, broken in health and fortune, 
and oppressed with cares and debts, we find him writing the Lord 
Treasurer Cranfield that he proposes to visit him at Chiswick, 
he adds: 

I hope to wait on your Lordship and gather some violets in your garden. 

He says in The Nezu Atlantis : 

In these we practice likewise all conclusions of grafting and inoculating, as 
well of 7aiM trees as fruit trees, which produceth many effects. 

While Shakespeare says: 

You see, sweet maid, 
We Many a gentle scion to the wildest stock. 
And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
By bud of nobler race. This is an art 
Which does mend nature, change it rather; but 
The art itself is nature.^ 

And we find the same thought again: 

Our scions, put in zvild and savage stocks, 
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds.^ 

Shakespeare has that curious and strange comparison: 

If you can look into the seeds of time 

And say which grain will grow and which will not.'* 

And, in the same vein, we find Bacon devoting pages to the 
study of the nature of seeds, and of the mode of testing them, to 
see whether they will grow or not. He says: 

And therefore skillful gardeners make trial of the seeds before they buy them, 
whether they be good or no, by putting them into water gently boiled; and if they 
be good they will sprout within half an hour.* 

' Tempest, iv, i. ^ Winter s Tale, iv, 3. ' Henry /'., iii, 5. 

'^Macbeth, i, 3. '" Natural H istory,%yio. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 



417 



And again: 



If any one investigate the vegetation of plants he should observe from the first 
sowing of any seed how and when the seed begins to swell and break, and be filled, 
as it were, with spirit.' 

And here is a curious parallelism. Bacon says: 

There be certain ci>nt-Jlo7ocrs, which come seldom or never in other places 
unless they be set, but only amongst corn; as the blue-bottle, a kind of yellow 
marigold, wild poppy and fiuiiitory. ... So it would seem that it is the loi-ii that 
qualifieth the earth and prepareth it for their growth.^ 

Shakespeare's attention had also been drawn to these humble 

corn-flowers, and he had reached the same conclusion, that the 

earth was prepared to receive these flowers by the presence of the 

corn. He describes Lear: 

Crowned with rank fnmitor, and furrow weeds, 
With hardock, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, 
Darnel and all the idle weeds that grow 
In OMX sustaining com} 

Bacon writes an essay Of Gardens, and Shakespeare is full of 

comparisons and reflections based upon gardens. For instance: 

Virtue? a fig ! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are oitr 
gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles or 
sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs or 
distract it with many; either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with indus- 
try: why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our own wills.'* 



And again: 



Our sea-walled garden, the whole land, 

Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up.^ 

And again: 

What rub, or what impediment there is, 

Why that the naked, poor and mangled peace, 

Dear nurse of arts, plenties and joyful births. 

Should not, in this best garden of the world. 

Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage? . . . 

The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth 

The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, 

Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank. 

Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems 

But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs.* 

And the closeness with which both studied the nature of plants 

^ Novum Or£^a>ita>i, hooVW. ^Lear,iv,4. ^ Rzckard lT.,\'n, 4,. 

^ Natural History, § 482. < Othello, i, 3. * Henry I'., v, 2. 



41 8 PARALLELISMS. 

and their modes of growtli is sliown in the following remarkable 
parallel. 

In that most curious and philosophical of the Plays, Troilus and 
Cressida, we find this singular Comparison: 

Checks and disasters 
Grow in the veins of actions highest reared; 
As knots, by the confliix of meeting saj^. 
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain, 
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.' 

And we find that Bacon had, in like manner, studied the effect 
of sap upon the growth of the tree: 

The cause whereof is, for that the sap ascendeth unequally, and doth, as it 
were, tire and stop by the way. And it seemeth they have some closeness and 
hardness in their stalk, which hindereth the sap from going up, until it hath gath- 
ered into a knot, and so is more urged to put forth. '-' 

Here we find the poet setting forth that the knots are caused 

by *' the conflux of the meeting sap," while the philosopher tells us 

that when the sap is arrested it " gathereth into a knot." And so 

it seems that both were studying the same subject and arriving at 

the same conclusions; and both thought that not only were the 

knots caused by the stoppage of the ascending sap, but that the 

knots produced the new branches: "so," says Bacon, "it is more 

urged to put forth." The knots, says Shakespeare, divert the 

grain from the straight, upright course of growth, to-wit, by 

making it put forth new branches. Can any man believe that 

Bacon and Shakspere were engaged at the same time in this same 

curious study, and reached independently these same remarkable 

conclusions ? 

And we see the gardener again in Richard II.: 

All superfluous branches 
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.^ 
Again : 

A violet in the youth of primy Nature.'* 

The thoughts of both ran upon flowers. Bacon says: 

We commend the odor of plants growing, and not plucked, taken in the open 
air; the principal of that kind are violets, gilliflowers, pinks, bean-flowers, lime- 
tree blossoms, vine buds, honeysuckles, yellow wall-flowers, musk roses, straw- 
berry leaves, etc. . . . Therefore to walk or sit near the breath of these plants 
should not be neglected.^ 

1 Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. '■' Natural History, % 589. ^ Kichard II., iii, 4. 

■• Iliiiiitet, i, 3. ^ History 0/ Life and Death. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 419 

And again he says: 

The daintiest smells of flowers are out of those plants whose leaves smell not, 
as violets, roses, wall-flowers, gilliflowers, pinks, woodbines, vine-flowers, apple- 
blooms, bean-blossoms, etc' 

The same admiration for flowers is shown by Shakespeare. He 

speaks of 

Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 

The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim. 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses. 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady 
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and 
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds. 
The flower-de-luce being one.-' 

I might till pages with further evidence that both Bacon and 
the writer of the Plays loved flowers and practiced gardening. 

III. Thk Study of Medicine. 
Bacon says of himself: 

I have been puddering in physic all my life. 

Shakespeare says: 

'Tis known I ever 
Have studied physic." 

Bacon writes to Sir Robert Cecil: 

I ever liked the Galenists, that deal with good compositions, and not the Para- 
celsians, that deal with these fine separations.'* 



Shakespeare says: 



Lafcaii. To be relinquished of the artists. 
Parolles. So I say, both of Galen and Paracelsus. 
Lafeati. Of all the learned and authentic fellows.* 



Macaulay says, speaking of Bacon: 

Of all the sciences, that which he regarded with the greatest interest was the 
science which, in Plato's opinion, would not be tolerated in a well-regulated com- 
munity. To make men perfect was no part of Bacon's plan. His humble aim 
was to make imperfect men comfortable. . . . He appealed to the example of 
Christ, and reminded his readers that the great Physician of the soul did not dis- 
dain to be also the physician of the body.*' 

« Natural History, §389. ' Pericles, iii, j. ^ All's Well that Ends Well, ii, ;■ 

"^ Winter's Tale, iv, 3. * Letter to Sir Robert Cecil. * Essay Bacon, p. 276. 



420 PARALLELISMS. 

On the other hand, the celebrated surgeon Bell says: 

My readers will smile, perhaps, lo see me quoting Shakespeare among physi- 
cians and theologians, but not one of all their tribe, populous though it be, could 
describe so exquisitely the marks of apoplexy, conspiring with the struggles for 
life, and the agonies of suffocation, to deform the countenance of the dead; so 
curiously does our poet present lo our conception all the signs from which it might 
be inferred that the good Duke Humphrey had died a violent death.' 

Dr. O. A. Kellogg, Assistant Professor of the State Lunatic 
Asylum at Utica, N. Y., says: 

The extent and accuracy of the medical, physiological and psychological 
knowledge displayed in the dramas of William Shakespeare, like the knowledge that 
is manifested on all matters upon which the rays of his mighty genius fell, have 
excited the wonder and astonishment of all men, who, since his time, have investi- 
gated those subjects upon which so much light is shed by the researches of modern 
science. 

Speaking of Bacon, Osborne, his contemporary, said: 

I have heard him outcant a London chirurgeon, — 

meaning thereby, excel him in the technical knowledge of his own 
profession. 

His marvelous delineations of the different shades of insanity in 
Lear, Ophelia, Hamlet, etc., are to be read in the light of the fact 
that Francis Bacon's mother died of insanity; and Bacon, with his 
knowledge of the hereditary transmissibility of disease, must have 
made the subject one of close and thorough study. There are 
instances in his biography which show that he was himself the 
victim of melancholy; and there are reasons to think, as will be 
shown hereafter, that he is the real author of a great medical work 
on that subject which passes now in the name of another. 

He seems to have anticipated Harvey's discovery of the circula- 
tion of the blood. Harvey, in 1628, demonstrated that "the blood 
which passed out from the heart, by the arteries, returned to the 
heart by the veins." 

But Shakespeare, long before that time, had said: 

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
That visit my sad heart,'- — 

indicating that he knew that the blood returned to tlie heart. 

I find the following interesting passage in Disraeli's Curiosities 
of Literature : 

^^cW'i Principles 0/ Surgciy^ 1815, vol. ii, p. 557. "Julius Ciesaj\ ii, i. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 421 

Dr. William Hunter has said that after the discovery of the valves in the veins, 
which Harvey learned while in Italy from his master, Fabricius ab Aquapendente, 
the remaining step might easily have been made by any person of common 
abilities. " This discovery," he observes, "set Harvey to work upon the use of 
the heart and vascular system in animals; and in the course of some years \v&'wa.'s, 
so happy as to discover, and to prove beyond all possibility of doubt, the circulation 
of the blood." He afterwards expresses his astonishment that this discovery 
should have been left for Harvey, though he acknowledges it occupied "a course 
of years ;" adding that " Providence meant to reserve it for Iiiiu, and would not let 
men see zokat was before them nor tinderstand to hat they read. It is remarkable that 
when great discoveries are effected, their simplicity always seems to detract from 
their originality; on these occasions we are reminded of the egg of Columbus.' 

But it seems that the author of the Shakespeare Plays, years 
before Harvey made his discovery, had also read of the observations 
•of Fabricius ab Aquapendente, and understood that there were 
valves in the veins and arteries. And this he could only have done 
in the original Italian — certainly not in English. And he refers to 
these valves as " gates " in the following lines: 

And in the porches of mine ears did pour 
The leperous distilment; whose effect 
Holds such an enmity with blood of man. 
That swift as quicksilver it courses through 
The natural gales and alleys of the body; 
And with a sudden vigor it doth posset 
And curd, like aigre droppings into milk. 
The thin and wholesome blood. - 

IV. Shakespeare's Physicians. 

And it is a remarkable fact that, while the art of medicine was 
in that age at a very low ebb, and doctors were little better than 
quacks, Shakespeare represents, on two occasions, the physician in 
a light that would do no discredit to the profession in this advanced 
age. Let ine give a few facts to show how reasonable and civilized 
was the medical treatment of the physicians in Lrar and MacbctJi, 
compared with that of the highest in skill in the sixteenth and 
•seventeenth centuries. 

Sir Theodore Mayern, Baron Aulbone, was born in France in 
1573. He was the great doctor of his day. Among his patients 
were Henry IV. and Louis XIII., of France, and James I., Charles I. 
and Charles II., of England. 

He administered calomel in scrtiple doses; he mixed sugar of 

' Disraeli, CKrinsittcs 0/ Literatuyi\ p. 412. "^ J/n/i//,-f, i, 5. 



422 



PARALLELISMS. 



k-ad in his conserves; but his principal reliance was in pulverized 
human bones and " raspings of a human skull unburied." His 
sweetest compound was his balsam of hats, strongly recommended 
for hypochondriacal persons, into which entered adders, bats, 
sucking whelps, earth-worms, hogs' grease, the marrow of a stag 
and the thigh-bone of an ox ! He died in 1655. He ought to 
have died earlier. 

Another of these learned physicians of Elizabeth's time was 
Doctor William Bulleyn, who was of kin to the Queen. He died in 
1576. His prescription for a child suffering from nervousness was 
"a smal yonge mouse, rested." 

And this state of ignorance continued for more than a century 
after Bacon's death. In 1739 the English Parliament passed an act 
to pay Joanna Stephens, a vulgar adventuress, ;^5,ooo, to induce 
her to make public her great remedy for all diseases. The medi- 
cines turned out to be, when revealed, a powder, a decoction and 
pills, made up principally of egg-shells, snails, soap, honey and 
swine-cresses ! 

Now, bearing all this mountebank business in mind, let us turn 
to the scene where the Doctor appears in Alacbeth. We read: 

Doctor. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in 
your reports. When was it she last walked? 

Gentlewoman. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from 
her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold 
it, write upon 't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this 
while in a most fast sleep. 

Doctor. A great perturbation in nature ! to receive at once the benefit of sleep 
and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking 
and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say? 

Geiitleivoman. That which I will not report after her. 

Doctor. You may, to me; and 'tis most meet you should. 

Gentlewoman. Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to confirm my 
speech. 

Enter Lady RFacbcth with taper. 

Lady Macbeth. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not .so pale 
— I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on 's grave. 
Doctor. Even so. . . . Will she go now to bed ? 
Gentlewoman. Directly. 

Doctor. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds 

Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds 

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. 

More needs she the divine than the physician. 

God, God, forgive us all ! Look after her; 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. ^2X 

Remove from her the means of all annoyance, 
And still keep eyes upon her: So, good night; 
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight: 
I think, but dare not speak. 

And farther on in the tragedy we liave: 

Macbeth. How does your patient, doctor? 

Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, 

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, 

That keep her from her rest. 

Macbeth. Cure her of that. 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; 

Raze out the written troubles of the brain; 

And, with some sweet oblivious antidote 

Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 

Which weighs upon the heart ? 

Doctor. Therein the patient 

Must minister to himself. 

Macbeth. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it. 

How courteous and dignified and altogether modern is this 
physician ? There is here nothing of the quack, the pretender, or 
the impostor. We hear nothing about recipes of human bones, or 
small roast mice, or snails, or swine-cresses. 

And this declaration, of the inadequacy of drugs to relieve the 
heart, reminds us of what Bacon says: 

You may take sarsa to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sul- 
phur for the lungs, castareum for the brain, but no receipt openeth the heart but a 
true friend.' 

In Lear we have another doctor. He is called in to care for the 
poor insane King, and we have the following conversation: 

Cordelia. What can man's wisdom do 

In the restoring of his bereaved sense? 

He that helps him, take all my outward worth. 

Physician. There is means, madam; 

Oi<r fostc) -nurse of nature is )-epose. 

The which he lacks; that to provoke in him, 

Are many simples operative, whose power 

Will close the eyes of anguish. 

Cord. All bless'd secrets, 

All you unpublished virtues of the earth, 

Spring with my tears ! be aidant and remediate 

In the good man's distress. - 

And how Baconian is this reference to the " unpublished virtues 

' Essay O/ Friendshif>. a Lear iv, 4. 



424 PARALLELISMS. ^ 

of the earth " ? It was the very essence of Bacon's philosophy to 

make those virtues known as "aidant and remediate" of the good 

of man. He sought, by a knowledge of the secrets of nature, to 

lift men out of their miseries and necessities. 

And again, after the Doctor has, by his simples operative, produced 

sleep, and Lear is about to waken, we have the following: 

Cordelia. How does the King? 
Physician. Madam, he sleeps still. 

... So please your Majesty, 
That we may wake the King? He hath slept long. 
Cord. Be governed by your knowledge and proceed, 
r the sway of your own will. 

P/iys. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him; 
I doubt not of his temperance. 
Cord. Very well. 

Pkys. Please you, draw near. — Louder the music there. . . . 
Cord. He wakes; speak to him. 
Phys. Madam, do you; 'tis fittest. 

Co7-d. How does my royal Lord? How fares your Majesty? 
Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave. . . . 
Cord. Sir, do you know me? 

Lear. You are a spirit, I know. When did you die ? 
Cord. Still, still, far wide. 
Phys. He's scarce awake: let him alone a while.' 

Surely there is nothing here, either in the mode of treatment or 
the manner of speech, that the modern physician could improve 
upon. The passage contains Bacon's forecasting of what the doc- 
tor should be — of what he has come to be in these latter times. 

V. The Medicinal Virtues of Sleep. 

And how well did both Bacon and the writer of the Plays know 
the virtue of those 

Simples operative, whose power 
Will close the eyes of anguish. 

Bacon in his Natural History., §738, discussing all the drugs that 
"inebriate and provoke sleep," speaks of "the tear oi poppy" of 
'''■ henbane-seed'' and of ''^mandrake." 

While Shakespeare is familiar with the same medicines. He 
says: 

"i^oi poppy, nor mandragora, 
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
Shall ever minister thee to that sweet sleep 
Which thou ow'dst once.^ 

' Lear, iv, 4. '^ Othello, iii, 3. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 425 

And again: 

With juice of cursed /ir/>i-njn in a vial.' 

And when the doctor in Lrar says that "the foster-nurse of 
nature is repose/' he speaks a great truth, but faintly recognized in 
that age, and not even fully understood in this. And yet in that 
unscientific, crude era both Bacon and the writer of the Plays 
clearly perceived the curative power of sleep. 

Shakespeare calls it 

Great nature "s second course, 
Chief )wiirisht-r in life's feast.'- 

And this curious idea of the noiirisJiin^ power of sleep is often 

found in Bacon. He says: 

Sleep doth supply somewhat to noiirisluncnt,'^ 

Sleep nottrisheik, or, at least, preserveth bodies a lonjj time without other 
uoufishment.^ 

Sleep doth ttoun'sk much, for the spirits do less spend the iiourisJnnent in 
sleep than when living creatures are awake. ' 

And Shakespeare says: 

The innocent sleep: 
Sleep, that knits up the ravel'd sleeve of care; 
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath. 
Balm of hurt minds. *•' 

And again: 

O sleep, O gentle sleep, 
Nature's soft nurse.' 

And Bacon lias something of that same idea of knitting up 
the raveled sleeve of care. He savs: 

I have compounded an ointment: . . . the use of it should be between sleeps, 
for in the latter sleep the parts assimilale chiefly.^ 

That is, they become knitted together. Bacon and the writer of 
the Plays seem both, to havti perceived that the wear of life frayed 
the nervous fiber 

Shakespeare says of sleep: 

Please you, sir, 
Do not omit the heavy offer of it: 
It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth 
It is a comforter.'^ 



Ill, I. 



' Hdmlet, i , 5. < Nafurnl Ilistm-y, % 746. ' 2d Henry // '. , i i , 

- Macieth, ii, 2. ^ Ibid., cent, i, § 57. « Natural Histoyy, cent, i, § 59. 

'^History 0/ Life and Death. '''Macbeth, ii, 2. " Tempest, ii, i. 



426 PARALLELISMS. 

Bacon says: 

Such is the force of sleep to restrain all vital consumption.' 

And again: 

Sleep is nothing else f)ut a reception and retirement of the living spirit into 
itself.'- 

It would almost seem as if spirit was so incompatible with its 
enfoldment of matter that tlie union could only continue at the 
price of periods of oblivion, or semi-death; during which the con- 
scious spirit, half-parted from its tenement, sinks back into the 
abyss of God, and returns rejuvenated, and freshly charged with 
vital force for the duties of life. But for centuries after Bacon's 
time there were thousands, even among the most enlightened of 
their age, who regarded sleep as the enemy of man, to be curtailed 
by all possible means. It is therefore a striking proof of identity 
when two writers, of that period, are found united in anticipating 
the conclusions of modern thought on this important subject. In 
the medicinal science of to-day sleep is indeed "sore labor's bath," 
and above all '' the balm of hurt minds." 

VI. Use of Medical Terms. 

But the Shakespeare writings bubble over with evidences that 
the writer was, like Bacon, a student of medicine. 

Bacon says: 

For opening, I commend beads or pieces of the roots of dirduus benedict us. "^ 

And Shakespeare says: 

Get you some of this distilled carduus henedictus: ... it is the only thing for 
a qualm.'* 

It would be extraordinary indeed if two distinct men not only 
used the same expressions, thought the same thoughts, cited the 
same quotations and pursued the same studies, but even reeoni- 
vierided the same medicines ! 

Bacon says: 

Extreme bitter as in ioloijiiinti<.,i. 

Shakespeare says: 

The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as 
hit to- as coloquintida.^ 

' History of Life and Peotti. * Much Alio ulwut Nothing, ill, 4. 

" Ibid. s Natural History., cent, i, § 36. 

3 Natural History, % 963. « Otlu-lto. \. 3. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 



427 



Here we have the writer of the Plays and Francis Bacon dwell- 
ing upon another medicine, and describing it in the same terms. 

Shakespeare speaks in Lear of " the hysterica passio." He alst> 
knew about the vascular membrane lining the brain: 

These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia 
main; and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion.' 

He also savs: 



Again; 



And again : 



And airain; 



What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug 
Will scour these English hence. 7^ 

Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons, 
Which at first are scarce found to distaste; 
But with a little act upon the blood, 
Burn like the mines of sidphur." 

And nothing is at a like goodness still; 
For goodness, growing to a p/curisy, 
Dies in his own too-much.'' 

And I will through and through 
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world. 
If they will patiently receive my medicine.-' 



No wonder some have argued that the writer of the Plays was 
a physician. 

In 1st Henry IT. ''' he refers to the midriff ; in 2J Henry IV. and 
Othello and Macbeth he describes accurately the effect of intoxicat- 
ing liquor on the system; in 2d Henry IV.' he refers to aconite : 
in The Merry Wives of Windsor he drags in the name of Escitlapiiis. 

In Kin\^ /"^"' 'i^ says: 

Before the curing of a strong disease. 
Even in the instant of repair and health. 
The fit is strongest; evils that take leave. 
On their departure most of all show evil.* 

In Coriolanus he says: 

Sir, these cold ways, 

That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous 
Where the disease is violent.' 

In Lear he says: 

Crack nature's moulds, all gerntens spill at once 
That make ungrateful man.'" 



' Love s Labor Lo.^t^ iv, 2. 
''■Macbeth, v, 3. 
3 Othello, iii, 3. 
■• ffainUt. iv, 7. 



■• .Is You Like It. 
' Act iii, scene 3. 
' Act iv, scene 4. 



" King John, iii, 4. 
" Coriolanus iii, t. 
'" Lear, iii, .1. 



428 PARALLELISMS. 

In Julius CiTsar^ he describes correctly the symptoms of epi- 
lepsy. In TiDion of Athens" he gives us the mode of treatment of a 
still more formidable disease. 

In Henry V. he furnishes us with a minute description of Fal- 
staff's death: 

A' parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at the turning of the tide, 
for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with fiowers, and smile upon 
his finger-ends, I knew there was but one way, for his nose was as sharp as a pen, 
and a' babbled of green fields. ... So he bade me lay more clothes on his feet. 
I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone. ^ 

And it is a curious fact that Francis Bacon studied the signs of 
death, as he studied everything else, with the utmost particularity 
and minuteness, and he has put them on record. He says: 

The immediate preceding signs of death are, great unquietness and tossing in 
the bed, fumbling with the hands [" I saw him fuvihlc with the sheets," says Dame 
Quickly], catching and grasping hard, gnashing with the teeth, speaking hollow, 
trembling of the nether lip, paleness of the face, the memory confused ["a' babbled 
of green fields," says Dame Quickly], speechless, cold sweats, the body shooting 
in length, lifting up the white of the eye, changing of the whole visage, as the nose 
sluirp ["his nose 'was as sJiarp as a pen," says Dame Quickly], eyes hollow, cheeks 
fallen, contraction and doubling of the eoldness in tlie extreme parts of the body 
["his feet were as cold as any stoney says Dame Quickly].'* 

Here we have the same symptoms, and in the same order. Who 
is there can believe that these descriptions of death came out of 
two different minds ? 

VII. The Same Historical Studies. 

Shakespeare wrote a group of historical plays extending from 
Richard II. to Henry VIII., with a single break — the reign of 
Henry VII. And Baeon eompleted the series iy writing a history of 
Henry VII..' 

Shakespeare wrote a play turning upon Scotch history — Mac- 
beth. Bacon had studied the history of Scotland. He says: 

The kingdom of Scotland hath passed through no small troubles, and remain- 
eth full of boiling and swelling tumors.-' 

Shakespeare wrote a play concerning Danish history — Hamlet. 
Bacon had carefuJly studied Scandinavian history. He says: 

1 Act i, scene 2. '^ History 0/ Life and Death, div. .\, § 30. 

'^ Act iv, scene 3. "Observations on a Libel — Life and 

^ Henry /'., ii, 3. Works, vol. I, p. 161. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 429 

The kingdom of Swedeland, besides their foreign wars upon their confines, 
the Muscovites and the Danes, hath also been subject to divers intestine tumults 
and mutations, as their stories do record} 

Shakespeare wrote a play of Jiiliiis Ccesar ; Bacon wrote a biog- 
raphy or character of Julius Ccesar. 

Shakespeare wrote a play, Antony and Cleopatra, in which Augus- 
tus Caesar is a principal character. Bacon wrote a biography of 
Augustus Ccesar. And he discusses, in his essay Of Love, Mark 
Antony, " the half-partner of the empire of Rome, a voluptuous 
man and inordinate, whose great business did not keep out love." 
And this is the very element of the great Roman's character on 
which the play of Antotiy and Cleopatra turns. 

Shakespeare wrote a play of Tinion of Athens, the misanthrope. 
Bacon speaks of " misanthropi, that make it their practice to bring 
men to the bough, and yet have never a tree in their garden for the 
purpose, as Timon had."" 

VIII. Julius Caesar in thf. Plays. 

Shakespeare manifests the highest admiration for Julius Caesar. 
He calls him ''the foremost man of all this world." 
In Cymbeline he says: 

There is no more such Caesars; other of them may have crooked noses; but to 
own such straight arms, none.^ 

In Hamlet he refers to him as "the mighty Julius." He says: 

A little ere the mighty Julius fell, 

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.'* 

In 2d Henry /V. he says: 

For Brutus' bastard hand stabbed Julius Csesar.* 

On the other hand, Bacon shows a like admiration for Caesar. 

He says: 

Machiavel says if Caesar had been overthrown "he would have been more 
odious than ever was Catiline ;" as if there had been no difference, but in fortune, 
between a very fury of lust and blood and the most excellent spirit (his ambition, 
reserved) of the ivorld.^ 

' Observations on a Libel — I.i/i- ami * Hatnlct, i, 1. 

Works, vol. i, p. 162. ^ 2d Henry II'., iv, i. 

"Essay O/ Goodness. ^ Advancevient 0/ Learning, book ii, 
' Cymbeline, iii, i. 



43° 



PARALLELISMS. 



This is but another way of saying: " The foremost man of all 
this world." He also refers to Caesar's letters and apophthegms, 
"' which excel all men's else." ' 

Shakespeare says: 

Kent, in the commentaries Ciesar writ, 
Is termed the civil'st place of all this isle.'-' 

Bacon refers to Caesar's Co/ni/ir/ifarics, and pronounces them 
"the best history of the world." ' 

In the play of Julius Ccesar we see the conspirators coming to- 
gether at the house of Brutus. In The Advaticemcut of Learning, 
book ii, we find Bacon describing the supper given by M. Brutus 
and Cassius to "certain whose opinions they meant to feci whether 
they were fit to be made their associates " in the killing of Ccesar. 

Bacon says of Julius Caesar: 

He referred all things to himself, and was the true and perfect center of all his 
actions. B)' which means, being so fast tied to his ends, he was still prosperous 
and prevailed in his purposes, insomuch that neither country, nor religion, nor 
good turns done him, nor kindred, nor friendship diverted his appetite nor bridled 
him from pursuing his own ends.'' 

In the play we find the same characteristic brought into view. 
Just before the assassination Cassius falls at Caesar's feet to beg 
the enfranchisement of Publius Cimber. Caesar replies: 

I could be well moved if I were as you; 

If I could pray to move, prayers would move me. 

But I am constant as the northern star 

Of whose true-fixed and resting quality 

There is no fellow in the firmament. 

The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks, 

They are all fire, and every one doth shine; 

But there is one in all doth hold his place: 

.So, in the world: 'tis furnished well with men, 

And men are flesh and blood and apprehensive; 

Yet, in the number, I df) know but one 

That unassailable holds on his rank, 

Unshaked of motion, and that I am he 

Let me a little show it.'' 

Here we see the same man described by Bacon, whom " neither 

country, nor good turns done him, nor kindred, nor friendship 

diverted . . . from pursuing his own ends." 

' A(h<aiue}iient of Lcartiing., book ii. * Character ofjiilius Cirsar. 

"^2(1 Henry /'/., iv, 7. ^Julius Ctesar, iii, i. 

' . \iivamcment 0/ l.cnrning, book ii. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 



431 



In Julius Ccssar we find Shakespeare suggesting the different 
temperaments and mental states that accompany particular con- 
ditions of the body: 

Let me have men about me that are fat; 
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights. 
• Yond' Cassius hath a lean and hungry look; 

He thinks too much : such men are dangerous.' 

And in Bacon's Catalogue of Particular Hisfories, to be studied, 
we find this: 

52. A history of different habits of body, of fat and lean, of complexions (as they 
are called), etc. 

IX. Studies of Mortality. 
Shakespeare tells us that Cleopatra had pursued 

Conclusions infinite 
Of easy ways to die. 

And she speaks of the asp as the " baby at niy breast that sucks 

the nurse to sleep." 

Bacon had made the same subject a matter of study. He says: 

The death that is »tosf wifkottt pain hath been noted to be upon the taking of 
the potion of hemlock, which in humanity was the form of execution of capital 
offenders in Athens. The poison of the asp, that Cleopatra used, liath some affinity 
■ji'ith it} 

Marvelous! marvelous! how the heads of these two men — if 
you will insist on calling them such — were stored with the same 
facts and gave birth to the same thoughts ! 

Both had studied the condition of the human body after death. 

Bacon says: 

I find in Plutarch and others that when Augustus Caesar visited the sepulcher 
of Alexander the Great in Alexandria, he found the body to keep its dimensions, 
but withal, that notwithstanding all the embalming, which no doubt was the best, 
the body was so tender, as Caesar touching but the nose defaced it." 

And, on the other hand, we find Shakespeare's mind dwelling 
upon the dust of this same Alexander, and tracing it, in his imagin- 
ation, through man}' transmutations, until he finds it "stopping the 
bung-hole of a beer-barrel."* 

We observe the mind of the poet pursuing some very curious 
and ghastly, not to say unpoetical, inquiries. In Hamlet we have: 

^Julius Ctesar, i, 2. "^ Natm-ai /fixtoi-y, §643. ' Ibid., §771. ^ Hamlet , v, i. 



432 PARALLELISMS. 

I/aiiiht. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot? 

Clo'vn. Faith, if he be not rotten before he die '(as we have many pocky corses 
now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in), he will last you some eight year, 
or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year. 

Hamlet. Why he more than another? 

Clorvn. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that he will keep out 
water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead 
body.' 

And Bacon's mind had turned to similar studies. He says: 

It is strange, and well to be noted, how long carcasses have continued uncor- 
rupt, and in their former dimensions, as appeareth in the mummies of Egypt; 
having lasted, as is conceived, some of them three thousand years. -' 

X. Oratory. 

Both Bacon and the writer of the Shakespeare Plays were prac- 
tical orators and students of oratory. 

As to the first, we have Ben Jonson's testimony: 

There happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his 
speaking. His language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly cen- 
sorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suf- 
fered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech 
but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from 
him without loss. He commanded where he spoke and had his judges angry and 
pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear 
of every man who heard him was lest he should make an end. 

Howell, another contemporary, sajrs of hiin : /' He was the elo- 
<juentest man that was born in this island."^ 

Let us turn now to the great oration which Shakespeare puts 
into the mouth of Mark Antony, as delivered over the dead body of 
Julius Caesar. 

Well did Archbishop Whately say of Shakespeare: 

The first of dramatists, he might easily have been the first of orators. 

Only an orator, accustomed to public speech, and holding " the 
affections of his hearers in his power," and capable of working upon 
the passions of men, and making them "angry or pleased" as he 
chose, could have conceived that great oration. It is climactic in 
its construction. Mark Antony begins in all humility and deep 
sorrow, asking only pity and sympathy for the poor bleeding 

corpse : 

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 

' Hamlet., v, i. ^ Natural Histoj-y^ § 771. ' Holmes, A uthorship of Shak., vol. ii, p. 600. 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 433 

He is most deferential to "tlie honorable men" who had assas- 
sinated Caesar: 

Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest, 
(For Brutus is an honorable man, — 
So are they all, all honorable men), 
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

And he gives the humble reason: 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me. 

And then how cunningly he interjects appeals to the feelings of 

the mob: 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill. 

And how adroitly, and with an ad captandum vitlgus argument^ 
he answers the charge that Caesar was ambitious: 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: 
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. 

And then, protesting that he will not read Caesar's will, he per- 
mits the multitude to know that they are his heirs. 

And what a world of admiration, in the writer, for Caesar him- 
self, lies behind these words: 

Let but the commons hear this testament, 
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read). 
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, 
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood; 
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory. 
And dying, mention it within their wills, 
Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy, 
Unto their issue. 

Then he pretends to draw back. 

Citizens. Read the will; we'll hear it, Antony; you shall read us the will — 
Caesar's will. 

Antony. Will you be patient? Will you stay a while? I have o'ershot myself 
to tell you of it. 

And then, at last, encouraged by the voices and cries of the 
multitude, he snarls out: 

I fear I wrong the honorable men 
Whose daggers have stabbed Ciesar. 



434 



PARALLELISMS. 



But before reading the will he descends to uncover the dead 
body of the great commander; the multitude pressing, with fiery- 
Italian eyes, around him, and glaring over each others' shoulders 
at the corpse. 

But first he brings back the memory of Caesar's magnificent 

victories: 

You all do know this mantle: I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on; 
'Tvvas on a summer's evening, in his tent, 

That day he oi'i'rcaiiie the A'ervii. 

Then he plucks away the garment and reveals the hacked and 

mangled corpse, 

Marred, as you see, by traitors. 

And thereupon he gives the details of the assassination, points 
out and identifies each wound, "poor, poor dumb mouths;" and 
at last reads the will, and sends the mob forth, raging for 
revenge, to let slip the dogs of war. 

Beside this funeral oration all other efforts of human speech are 
weak, feeble, poverty-stricken and commonplace. Call up your 
Demosthenes, your Cicero, your Burke, your Chatham, your Grat- 
tan, your Webster, — and what are their noblest and loftiest utter- 
ances compared with this magnificent production ? It is the most 
consummate eloquence, wedded to the highest poetry, breathing the 
profoundest philosophy, and sweeping the whole register of the 
human heart, as if it were the strings of some grand musical instru- 
ment, capable of giving forth all forms of sound, from the sob of 
pity to the howl of fury. It lifts the head of human possibility a 
whole shoulder-height above the range of ordinary human achieve- 
ment. 

We find Bacon writing a letter, in 1608-9, to Sir Tobie Matthew, 
in which he refers back to the time of the death of Elizabeth (1603), 
and, alluding to a rough draft of his essay. The Felicity of Queen 
Elizabeth, which Bacon had shown to Sir Tobie, he says : 

At that time methought you were more willing to hear Julius Qesar than 
Elizabeth commended. 

Bacon, it is known, submitted his acknowledged writings to the 
criticism of his friend, Sir Tobie ; and we can imagine him reading 
to Sir Tobie, in secret, this grand oration, with all the heat and fer- 
vor with which it came from his own mind. And we can imagine 



IDENTICAL STUDIES. 43^ 

Sir Tobie's delight, touched upon and referred to cunningly in the 
foregoing playful allusion. 

What a picture for a great artist that would make : Bacon and 
Sir Tobie alone in the chamber of Gray's Inn, with the door 
locked ; and Bacon reading, with flashing eyes, to his enraptured 
auditor, Mark Antony's oration over the dead body of Julius Caesar. 

XI. Other Studies. 

But, in whatever direction we turn, we find the writer of the 
Plays and Francis Bacon devoting themselves to the same pursuits. 

Bacon in TJic N^eio Atlantis discusses the possibility of there 
being discovered in the future "some perpetual motions" — a curi- 
ous thought and a curious study for that age. 

Shakespeare makes Falstaff say to the Chief Justice: 

I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothinj^ 
with perpetital motion. ' 

Bacon says: 

Snow-water is held unwholesome; inasmuch as the people that dwell at the 
foot of the snow mountains, or otherwise upon the ascent, especially the women, 
by drinking snow-water have great bags hanging under their throats. - 

Shakespeare says: 

When we were boys, 
Who would believe that there were mountaineers 
Dew-lapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them 
Wallets of flesh?" 

Shakespeare was familiar with the works of Macliiavel, and 
alludes to him in The Merry I Fives of IViiidsor, in ist Henry \''I. 
and in jd Henry VI . 

Bacon had studied his writings, and refers to him in The 
Advancement of Learning, book ii, and in many other places. 

Shakespeare was a great observer of the purity of the air. He 

says in Macbeth : 

This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air 
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
Unto our gentle senses. 

And Bacon says: 

I would wish you to observe the climate and the temperature of the air ; for so 
you shall judge of the healthfulness of the place. ■• 

^ 2d Henry //'., i, 2. "^ Naturitl History. §396. ' 3 Tempest, iii, 3. 

'^ Letter to the Earl of Rutland, written in the name of the Earl of Essex — A//;- ami H'orks. 
vol. ii, p. 19. 



436 PARALLELISMS. 

Bacon also saj's: 

The heart receiveth benefit or harm most from the air we breathe, from vapors 
and from the affections.^ 

One has only to read the works of Francis Bacon to see that 
they abound in quotations from and references to the Bible. He 
had evidently made the Scriptures the subject of close and thor- 
ough study. 

On the other hand, the Rev. Charles Wordsworth says: 

Take the entire range of English literature, put together our best authors who 
have written upon subjects professedly not religious or theological, and we shall 
not find, I believe, in all united, so much evidence of the Bible having been read 
and used as we have found in Shakespeare alone. 

We have already seen that both the author of the Plays and 
Francis Bacon had studied law, and had read even the obscure 
law-reports of Plowden, printed in the still more obscure black- 
letter and Norman French. 

In fact, I might swell this chapter beyond all reasonable bounds 
by citing instance after instance, to show that the writer of the 
Plays studied precisely the same books that Francis Bacon did; 
and, in the chapter on Identical Quotations, I have shown that he 
took out of those books exactly the same particular facts and 
thoughts which had adhered to the memory of Francis Bacon. It 
is difficult in this world to find two men who agree in devoting 
themselves not to one, but to a multitude of the same studies; and 
rarer still to find two men who will be impressed alike with the 
same particulars in those studies. 

But let us move forward a step farther in the argument. 

' Histifry 0/ Li/e and Death, 



CHAPTER VI. 

• IDEXTICAL ERRORS. 

Lend thy serious hearinjj to what I shall unfold. 

Hamlet, ?", J. 

-'' I ^HE list of coincident errors must necessarily be brief. We 
^ can not include the errors common to all men in that age, 
for those would prove nothing. And the mistakes of so accurate 
and profound a man as Francis Bacon are necessarily few in 
number. But if we find any errors peculiar to Francis Bacon 
repeated in Shakespeare, it will go far to settle the question of 
identity. For different men may read the same books and think 
the same thoughts, but it is unusual, in fact, extraordinary, if they 
fall into the same mistakes. 

I. Both Misquote Aristotle. 

Mr. Spedding noticed the fact that Bacon in The Advancement of 
Learning had erroneously quoted Aristotle as saying " that young 
men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy," because "they are 
not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attem- 
pered with time and experience"; while, in truth, Aristotle speaks, 
in the passage referred to by Bacon, of ^^ political philosophy." 

Mr. Spedding further noted that this precise error of confound- 
ing moral w'xth political philosophy had been followed by Shakespeare. 
In Troilus and Cressida the two "young men," Paris and Troilus, 
had given their opinion that the Trojans should keep possession of 
the fair Helen. To which Hector replies: 

Paris and Troilus, you have both said well; 
And on the cause and question now in hand 
Have glozed — but superficially; not much 
Unlike ^'(7««o- men whom Aristotle thought 
Unfit to hear wi?/??/ philosophy.' 

And what reason did Bacon give why young men were not fit 
to hear moral philosophy ? Because " they are not settled from the 

' Troilus and Cressida, il, 2. 

437 



438 



PARALLELISMS. 



boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and 
experience." And why does Hector think young men are "unfit 
to hear moral philosophy" ? Because : 

The reasons you allege do more conduce 

To the hot passions of distempocd blood, 

Than to make up a free determination 

'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge 

Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice 

Of any true decision. 

II. An Error in Natural Philosophy. 

Shakespeare had a curious theory about fire: it was that each 
fire was an entity, as much so as a stick of wood; and that one 
flame could push aside or drive out another flame, just as one stick 
might push aside or expel another. This of course was an error. 
He says: 

Even as one heat another heat expels. 
Or as one nail by strength drives out another, 
So the remembrance of my former love 
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.' 

And the same thought is repeated in Con'ola/ius : 

One fire drives out another ; one nail, one ntiil.'^ 

We turn to Bacon's Promiis of Formularies and Elegancies, now 
preserved in the British Museum, and, in his own handwriting, we 
have, as one of the entries: 

Clavum clavo pellere — (To drive out a nail -villi n /mil). 

This is precisely the expression given above: 

One nail by strength drives out another. 

One fire drives out another; one nail, one nail. 

But behind this was a peculiar and erroneous theory held by 
Bacon, concerning heat, which he records in the Sylva Sylvariim^ 
He held that heat was a substance; some of his favorite fallacies 
were that "one flame within another quencheth not," and that 
"flame doth not mingle with flame, but remaineth contiguous." 
He speaks of one heat being "mixed with another," of its being 
"pushed farther," — as if so much matter. This is precisely the 
erroneous theory which was held by the writer of the Plays. 

' Tivo Genttcinen of Verona, ii, 4. * Coriolanus, iv, 7. ' Vol. i, p. 32. 



IDENTICAL ERRORS. 



439 



Mrs. Pott says: 



Knowing, as we now do, that these theories were as mistaken as they appear 
to have been original, it seems almost past belief that any two men should, at pre- 
cisely the same period, have independently conceived the same theories and made 
the same mistakes.' 

III. Spirits of Animate and Inanimate Nature, 

Bacon had another peculiar theory which the world has refused 
to accept, at least in its broad significance. 

He believed that there is a living spirit, or life principle, in 
every thing in the created universe, which conserves its substance 
and holds it together, and thus that, in some sense, the stones and 
the clods of the earth possess souls; that without some such spirit- 
ual force, differing in kinds, there could be no difference in sub- 
stances. For why should the arrangement of the molecules of 
foam, for instance, differ from that of the molecules of iron, if some 
external force has not been imposed upon them to hold them in 
their peculiar relation to each other, and thus constitute the differ- 
ence between the light froth and the dense metal ? 

This theory is akin to the expression which Shakespeare puts 
into the mouth of the Duke, in As You Like It: 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.'^ 

And Prince Arthur says: 

My uncle's spirit is in these stones.^ 

Bacon says: 

All tangible bodies contain a spirit enveloped with the grosser body. There is 
no known body in the upper part of the earth without its spirit. The spirit which 
exists in all living bodies keeps all the parts in due subjection; when it escapes the 
body decomposes, or the similar parts unite — as metals rust, fluids turn sour. 

And Bacon sees a relationship between the spirit within the ani- 
mal and the spirit of the objects, even inanimate, which act upon 
the senses of the animal; and he strikes out the curious thought 
that 

There might be as many senses in animals as there are points of agreement 
with inanimate bodies if the animated body w^x^ perforated, so as to allow the spirit 
to have access to the limb properly disposed for action, as a fit organ.'' 

That is to say, the spirit of the universe pervades all created 

^ Protnus, p. 33. "^ As You Like li,\\^\. ^ King John, \\ ,t,. * A'ovuin Organioii, hook. n. 



440 J^A RA LLELISMS. 

things, animate and inanimate, but the intelUgence of man and ani- 
mal only takes cognizance of the spirits of other things around them 
through the perforations of the senses; the eyes, ears, touch, taste 
and smell being, as it were, Jioles, through which the external uni- 
versal vitality reaches into our vitality and stirs it to recognition. 
A solemn thought, doubtless true, and which should teach us mod- 
esty; for it would follow that we see not all God's works, but only 
those limited areas which come within the range of the peep-holes 
of our few senses. In other words, the space around us may be 
filled with forms, animate and inanimate, which hold "no points of 
agreement" with our senses, and of which, therefore, we can have 
no knowledge. And thus the dream of the schoolman of old may 
be true, that the space around us is filled as thick with spirits as the 
snow-storm is filled with snow-flakes. 

This doctrine of spirits runs through all Bacon's writings. He 
says in one place: 

All bodies have spirits and pneumatical parts within them. . . . But the 
spirits of things inanimate are shut in and cut off by the tangible parts.' 

That is to say, they have no holes of the senses, through which 
the spirit of the inanimate object can communicate with us; any 
more than we could communicate with a human spirit, locked up 
in a body devoid of all the senses. 

Again he says: 

Spirits are nothing else but a natural body rarified to a proportion, and 
included in the tangible parts of bodies as in an integument ; . . . and they are in 
all tangible bodies whatsoever, more or less.- 

And again speaking of the superstition of ' the evil eye," he 
says: 

Besides, at such times [times of glory and triumph], the spirits of the persons 
envied do come forth most into the outward parts, and so meet the blow.^ 

Bacon does not speak, as we would, of tJie spirit in a man, but of 

the spirits, as if there were a multitude of them in each individual, 

occupying every part of the body. For instance: 

Great joys attenuate the spirits; familiar cheerfulness strengthens the spirits 
by calling them forth.'* 

Again: 

In bashfulness the spirits do a little go and come.^ 

'^ Nattiral History, §6oi. ' Essay 0/"^«7'_j'. ^V-^%%s.y Of Goodness. 

2 Ibid., § 92. 4 History of Life and Death. 



IDENTICAL ERRORS, 441 

And again: 

The spirits of the wine oppress the spirits auitnal} 

And in Shakespeare we find this same theory of the spirits. He 

;says: 

Fair daughter ! you do draw my spirits from me. 
With new lamenting ancient oversights.- 

And again: 

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep.^ 

And again: 

I am never merry when I hear sweet music. 
The reason is, your spirits are attentive.^ 

And again: 

Your spirits shine through you.'' 

Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years.* 

My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.' 

My spirits are nimble.^ 

Heaven give your spirits comfort.' 

Summon up your dearest spi/'its.^'^ 

The nimble spirits in the arteries." 

Their great guilt, 
Like poison given to work a great time after, 
Now 'gins to bite the spirits.'^- 

Spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues.'^ 

Thus in the Shakespeare Plays we find the refliection of one of 

Bacon's most peculiar philosophical beliefs. 

IV. Spontaneous Generation, 

Bacon fell into another error in natural philosophy which reap- 
pears in the Plays. This was a belief, which continued down to 
our own times, in spontaneous generation ; that is to say, that life 
could come out of non-life. We now realize that that marvelous 
and inexplicable thing we call life ascends by an unbroken pedi- 
gree, through all time, back to the central Source of Force in the 
universe, by whatever name we may call it. But Bacon believed 
that life could come out of conditions of inorganic matter. He 
says : 

• Natural History, §726. ^ As You Like It, I, 2. '^^ Love's Labor Lost, ii, i. 
^ 3d Henry IP'., ii, 3. ' Tempest, i, 2. ""Ibid., iv, 3. 

^ Hamlit, iii, 4. ^Ibid., ii, i. ^"^ Tempest, iii, 3. 

* Merchant 0/ Venice, v, i. ^ Measure for Measure, iv, 2. ^^ Measure /or Measure^ 1, i. 
•* Macbeth, iii, i. 



442 



PARALLELISMS. 



The first beginnings and rudiments or effects of life in animalculae spring from 
putrefaction, as in the eggs of ants, worms, mosses, frogs after ram, etc.' 

Again he says. 

The exci-ements of living creatures do not only breed insecta when they are 
exerned, but also while they are in the body.''^ 

We find that the poet Shakespeare had thought much upon this 
same very unpoetical subject. He says: 

And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, 
Your bedded hair, like life in exerevien/s. 
Starts up and stands on end." 

Bacon says: 

For all putrefaction, if it dissolve not in arefaction, will in the end issue intO' 
plants, or living creatures bred oi putrefaction.'* 

And again he speaks of 

Living creatures bred o{ putrefaction.' 

And in Shakespeare we have Hamlet saying: 

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion.^ 

And in all this we see, also, the natural philosopher, who- 
believed that " most base things tend to rich ends." 

V. Other Errors. 

Both believed that there was a precious stone in the head of a 
toad. Bacon says: 

Query. If the stone taken out of a toad's head be not of the like virtue; for 
the toad loveth shade and coolness.'' 

Shakespeare says : 

Sweet are the uses of adversity; 

Which, like the toad, ugly und venomous. 

Wears yet a piecious jewel in his head.^ 

Both thought the liver was the seat of sensuality. Bacon in 
The Advancemettt of Learning, book ii, refers to Plato's opinion to 
that effect. And in Shakespeare we have: 

This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity; 
A green goose, a goddess.' 



> Novum Organum, book i 1. ' ■* Natural History, § 605. ' Natural History, cent, x, § 967^ 
" Natural History, § 696. « Ibid., § 328. ^As Vou Like It, ii, i. 

3 Hamlet, iii, 4. « Hamlet, li, 2. * Love's Labor Lost, iv, 3. 



IDENTICAL ERRORS. 443 

Both believed, despite the discoveries of Galileo, that the earth 
was the center of the universe, and that the heavens revolved 
around it. Later in his life Bacon seemed to accept the new theo- 
ries, but at the time the Plays were written he repudiated them. 
He says: 

Who would not smile at the astronomers, I mean not these new carmen -aliicli 
drive the earth about .^ 

Again he says: 

It is a poor center of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth, for that only 
stands fast upon his own center; whereas all things that have affinity with the 
heavens move upon the center of another, which they benefit. - 

While Shakespeare also rejected the new theories. He says in 

Hamlet : 

Doubt thou the stars are fire. 
Doubt that the sun doth move.^ 

Again he says: 

The heavens themselves, the planets aii<i this center. 
Observe degree, priority and place.* 

And in the same play he says: 

But the strong base and building of my love 
Is as the very center of the earth, 
Drawing all things to it.^ 

' Essay Jn Praise 0/ Knowledge, 1590 ' Hamlet, ii, 2. 

— Life and Works, vol. i, p. 124. * Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 

" Essay Of Wisdom. '• Ibid., iv, 2. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE fDKNTICAL USE OE UNUSUAL WORDS. 

Letter for letter ! Why, this is the very same : the very hand : the very words. 

Merry II 'i7'es of Windsor^ ii, i. 

I HAVE already shown, in the tirst chapter of Book I., the 
tendency manifested in the Plays to use unusual words, 
especially those derived from or constructed out of the Latin. I 
may add to the list already given the following instances: 

Ami all things rare 
That heaven's air in this huge ro)idure hems.' 

Cowards and men cautelous} 

No soil or caiitclr 

Through all the world's vastidily.^ 

Such exsufflicatc and blown surmises.^ 

His pendant bed ^nA procrcant cradle.* 

Thou -.<'nu"d< dst leaven.' 

Rend and dfraciiiatc.^ 

Thou racadtemon.'^ 

We have a very crowding of words, unusual in poetry, into the 

following lines : 

As knots, by the <-07iJlux of meeting sap, 
Infect the sound pine and diTert his grain 
Tortive and erniiit from his course of growth.'" 

All these things bespeak the scholar, overflowing with Roman 
learning and eager to enrich his mother-tongue by the coinage of 
new words. It is not too much to say that Bacon has doubled the 
capacity of the English language. He was ^iware of this fact him- 
self, and in his Discourse in Praise of Queen Elizabeth he says that 
the tongue of England '" has been infinitely polished since her 
happy times." 

' Sonnet -xxi. = OtheUo, iii, 3. » Ibid., i, 3. 

^Julius Ccesar,i\, \. *■ '^ Macbeth, U 6. ^ Richard III., \, 3,. 

3 Hamlet, i, 3. ' Troilus and Cressida, ii, i. '" Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 

* Measure for Measure, iii, i. 

444 



THE IDENTICAL USE OF UNUSUAL WORDS. 



445 



We find in Bacon's prose works the same tendency to coin or 
transfer words bodily from the Latin. I give a few examples : 

"Coarctation," " percutient," " mordication, " " carnosities," " the ingurgita- 
tion of wine," "incomprehensions," " arefaction," " flexuous courses of nature," 
" exulcerations," " reluctation," " embarred," " digladiation," " vermiculate ques- 
tions," " morigeration," " redargution," "maniable," " ventosity." 

But we will also find, in both sets of writings, a disposition to 
use quaint, odd and unusual words, borrowed, many of them, from 
that part of common speech which rarely finds its way into print, — 
the colloquialisms of the shop and the street, — and we will find 
many of them that are used in the same sense by both Bacon and 
Shakespeare. 

Macbeth says : 

I pull in resolution, and begin 

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend, 

That lies like truth.' 

The commentators have been puzzled with this word, but we 
have it also in Bacon : 

Those smells are all strong, and doy>////and vellicate the sense.- 

To vellicate is to twitch convulsively. 

We find in Hamlet tlie strange word pall : 

Our indiscretion sometimes serv'es us well 
When our dear plots Aa pall.''' 

We turn to Bacon and we find him using the same word: 

The beer or wine hath not been palled or deaded at all.'' 

And again: 

The refreshing or quickening of drink />(?//t7/ or dead.-" 

In Bacon we have: 

For if they go forth right to a place, they must needs have sight.* 
Shakespeare says : 

Step aside from the d'lrecl J'orth right.'' 
Through, forth rights and meanders.*' 

Bacon says: 

I have 'been p II Me ring in physic all qpy life. 

' Macbeth^ V, 4. * Natural History, §385. ' Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. - 

^ Natural History, %%-i^. * Ibid., §314. ^ Tcinjf>cst.,'\\\. ^. 

» Hamlet, V, I. « Ibid. , r 698. 



446 



PARALLELISMS. 



Shakespeare says : 

The gods that keep such -a piiddcr o'cx our heads.' 

This word occurs but on this occasion in the Plays. It means 

bother. 

There is a word in Henry V'' — imbar — which has excited con- 
siderable controversy among the commentators. It occurs in the 
discussion of the Salic law of France: 

So that as clear as is the summer's sun, 
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim, 
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear 
To hold in right and title of the female; 
So do the kings of France unto this day: 
Howbeit they would hold up this Salic law, 
To bar your Highness claiming from the female; 
And rather choose to hide them in a net, 
Than amply to imbar their crooked titles 
Usurped from you and your progenitors. 

I quote Knight's foot-note upon this word: 

Imbar. The Folio gives this word i/i/bai-ir, which modern editors, upon the 
authority of Theobald, have changed into ii/ibarc. Rowe, somewhat more boldly, 
reads 7)iake bare. There can be no doubt, we think, that imbar is the right word. 
It might be taken as placed in opposition to bar. To <^<7r is to obstruct; to imbar 
is to bar in, to secure. They would hold up the Salic law "to bar your High- 
ness," hiding "their crooked titles" in a net rather than amply defending them. 
But it has been suggested to us that imbar is here used for " to set at the bar " — to 
place their crooked titles before a proper tribunal. This is ingenious and plausible. 

I quote these comments to show that the word is a rare and 
obscure one. The two words, bar and imbar, seem to me to mean 
substantially the same thing; as we find p/ead and implead, personate 
and impersfl'iate, plant and itnplant. If there is any difference, it con- 
sists in :he fact that bar means, as suggested by Knight, to shut 
out, and hnbar to shut in. In the sentence under consideration it 
seems that both the title of the reigning French King and the 
claim of King Henry V. came through the female line, and the 
Archbishop of Canterbury shows that the French, while their King 
holds in contravention of the Salic law yet set it up as a bar to 
the claim of the English King, also holding through the female 
line, and thus involve themselves in a net or tangle of contradic- 
tions, instead of amply, fully, and on other and substantial grounds, 

1 Lear , iii, 2. " Act i, scene 2. 



THE IDENTICAL USE OE UNUSUAL WORDS. 



447 



imbarriiig their titles, inclosing them and defending them from the 
world. 

And here again, where we would find the explanation of obscure 
words in Shakespeare, we are driven to Bacon. 

In his History of Henry VII. he says: 

The King forthwith banished all Flemings , . , out of his kingdom; com- 
manding his subjects likewise, and by name his merchants adventurers, which had 
a reisance in Antwerp, to return; translating the mart, which commonly followed 
the English cloth, unto Calais; and entbanrd a\so all further trade for the future. 

Here we get at the meaning of the word. He not only drove 
the Flemish merchants out of his country and recalled his own 
merchants resident in Flanders, and changed the foreign mart, but 
he also embarred all further trade — that is, denied the Flemish 
commerce access to his people. 

And it is a curious fact that in our great American dictionary 
( IVebsters Unabridged) the two words, embarred and imbare, are 
given — the first with the above quotation from Bacon, and the 
other with the example of the word from Henry V., with a meaning 
attached, created to suit the emergency, " to lay bare, to uncover, 
to expose." So tiiat, to attempt to read Shakespeare without 
Bacon, the commentators are driven to coin new words "which 
never were, and no man ever saw." 

We read in Shakespeare: 

How cam'st thou to be the siege of this mooncalf? ' 

J. O. Halliwell says in a foot-note upon this passage: 

A Diooncalf IS an imperfectly-developed foetus, here metaphorically applied to a 
misshapen monster. 

But we turn to Bacon, and there we find the real explanation: 

It may be that children and young catt/e that are brought forth in the full of the 
moon are stronger and iargcr than those which are brought forth in the wane; and 
those, also, which are begotten in the full of the moon [are stronger and larger]. ^ 

So that the term was applied to Caliban with reference to his 
gross proportions. 

The curious word starting-hole occtirs but once in the 
Plays, in Falstaff's interview with the Prince,^ after the robbery on 
Gads-hill; and it is so rare that it is made the foundation of a foot- 

' Tempest, ii, 2. * Natural History § 897. ^ 1st Henry IV'., ii, 4. 



448 



PARALLELISMS. 



note. We turn to Bacon, and we tind it used by liim in the same 
sense: 

He [Lopez] thought to provide himself with as many starting-holes and eva- 
sions as he could devise.' 

Bacon says: 

So with /iian'L'lfltis consent and applause.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

The rogues are niarvt'lotis poor/' 
I\Iari<eloHS foul linen/ 

Bacon speaks of 

Incredibh' affection.* 

This word is found but once in the Plays: 

I tell you, 'tis i)2credible to believe 
How much she loves me.'' 

Bacon says: 

The people entertained this airy body ox phantasm? 

Shakespeare says: 

A fanatical ///ff;;/rt.rw.'* 

This is a rare word; it occurs but twice in the Plays; the word 
phantasma once. 

Bacon says: 

It [Ireland] was a ticklish and unsettled state.* 

Sliakespeare says: 

And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts 
To every ticklish reader.'" 

This word occurs but once in the Plays, the instance given. 

Bacon says; 

The embassador did so magnify the King and Queen, as was enough to glut the 
hearers." 

This odd word occurs only once in the Plays, in The Tempest^ 
and is considered so unusual as to be the subject of a foot-note: 

1 The Lopez Conspiracy —Life and Works, * Taming of ilie Shreiv, ii, i. 

vol. i, p. 283. ' History 0/ Henry VIL 

^ History 0/ Henry I '//. * Love's Labor Loit, v, r. 

3 A it's IVell thai Ends 1 1 'ett,iv, 3. » History 0/ Henry //. 

'^ 2d Henry IV., v, i. '" Troilus and Cressida, iv, 5. 

^History of Henry VU. '^'^ History of Henry VIL 



THE IDENTICAL USE OF UNUSUAL IVORDS. 449 

Though every drop of water swear against it 
And gape at widest X.o g/itt him.' 

We find the word inoculate but once in the Plays: 

For virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it.* 
Bacon uses the same rare word: 

Grafting and inocutatiug wild trees. ^ 

Imogen says to the entranced loachimo: 

What, dear sir, 
Thus raps you ? Are you well ? ■* 

And Knight has a foot-note: 

Raps you — transports you. We are familiar with the participle rapt, but this 
form of the verb is uncommon. 

We turn to Bacon and we find him using the same uncommon 

form : 

Winged enticements that ravish and rap mortal men.^ 

We find in the Plays a very curious expression. Ajax calls 
Thersites: 

A vinew'dst leaven} 

We turn to Bacon and we find him applying the same word to 
human beings : 



Bacon says: 
Shakespeare : 

Bacon: 
Shakespeare: 



A leaven of men.'' 

A core of people.* 
Thou core of envy.' 

Dregs of the northern people.'" 

Dregs of the storm." 
Dregs of conscience. '- 



Bacon says: 

I doubt not but in the university you shall find choice of many excellent wits, 
and in things wherein they have xuaded, many of good understanding.'^ 

1 Tempest, i, i. 8 ibid. 

"^Hamlet, iii, i. " Troilus and CressUia, V, i. 

3 Neiu A tlantis. ' " History of Henry I 'II. 

* Cymbeline^ i, 7. " Tempest, ii, 2. 

^ Wisdom of the Ancients — Sphynx. '^ Richard III., i, 4. 

* Troilus and Cressida, ii, i. '' Letter to Sir Foulke Greville — Life and 
' History of Henry VH. Works, vol. ii, p. 25. 



45° 



PARALLELISMS. 



And again: 

But if I should 'vade further into this Queen's praises.' 
Shakespeare says: 

For their joy waded in tears. - 

I am in blood 
Stepped in so far, that should I nHide no more, 
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.^ 

Bacon says: 

He was wholly compounded of frauds and deceits.'' 
Shakespeare says: 

This foolish compounded qX?^.^ , man.^ 

In the large co»iposition of this man.' 

We might coi/ipoitnd -d. boy, half French, half English.' 

And she, of all compounded, 
Outsells them all.* 

The word slobber is referred to by the commentators as a strange 
and unusual word. It is probably the same word as slubber."^ It is 

used in The Merchant of Venice, ii, 8: 

Slubber not on the business for my sake, Bassanio. 
Bacon'" speaks of ''slubbering on the lute," to illustrate his "cau- 
tioning exercise, as to beware lest by evil doing, as all beginners do 
weakly, a man grow to be inveterate in a bad habit." Slubbering on 
the lute means, therefore, practicing in a slovenly manner. 
And this word inveterate is a favorite one with Shakespeare: 

The inveterate canker. ' ' 
Invete7-ate mzWcft}"^ 
Inveterate hate.'^ 

In Shakespeare we find: 

Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve; 
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind. 



' Felic. Queen Elizabeth. 

2 Winter's Tale, v. 2. 

^ Macbeth, iii, 4. 

* Character 0/ Julius desar. 

^ 2d Henry IV., i, 2. 

^ King John, i, I. 

''Henry V., v, 2. 

' Cy»ibeline. iii, 5. 



^ Shakespearzana,M.aLy, 1884, p. 185 — Article 

by J. Lauglin. 
^"Discourse Concerning Help Jor the Intellect- 
ual Powers, 
" King John, v, 2. 
^■^Richani I/.,i, i. 
" Coriolanus, ii, 3. 



THE WE.VTICAL USE OF UNUSUAL WORDS. 



451 



This word rack has led to great controversy, and as an emenda- 
tion the word wreck was suggested, but the true explanation was 
found in Bacon.' He says: 

The winds in the upper regions, which move the clouds above, which we call 
the 7-ack, and ar^ not perceived below, pass without noise.''' 

Hence the rack evidently means the light, fleecy, upper clouds, a 
tine fmage for unsubstantiality. 

And w^e have another curious instance wherein Shakespeare is 
only to be explained by Bacon. In 2d Henry IV., ii, 2, Poins says 
of Falstaff, speaking to Bardolph: 

And how doth the Martlemas, your master. 

The commentators explain this as meaning the feast of St. Mar- 
tin, the nth of November. 

Poins calls Falstaff the Martlemas because his year of life is running out." 
But we turn to Bacon's N'atural History. We find 

That that is dry is unapt to putrefy; and therefore smoke preserveth flesh, as 
we see in bacon, and neat's tongues and Martlemas beef, etc* 

This is a much more natural explanation. Poins refers to the 
aged but gross Falstaff as a beef, dried and smoked by time. 

Bacon says: 

The breath in man's vtierocosmos and in other animals do very well agree." 

Shakespeare says: 

If you see this in the map of my mici-ocostn, follows it I am known well 
enough too.** 

Bacon says: 

But sure it could not be that pelting matter.' 

Shakespeare says: 

Every pelting, petty officer.'^ 
Poor felting villages, sheep-cotes.*" 

Shakespeare says: 

Do cream and mantle like a standing pool,"* 

' Knight's Shak.y note B, vol. ii, p. 429. ' Corio/anus, ii, i. 

"^ Natural History, cent, ii, §115. ' Letter to Buckingham. 

•'' Knight. 8 Measure /or Measure, ii, 2. 

■* Natural History, cent. iv. ' Lear, ii, 3. 

* Natural History 0/ Winds. '" Merchant 0/ I 'enice, i, i. 



452 FA HALLE LI SMS. 

Their rising senses 
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that nuuille 
Their clearer reason.' 

Bacon says: 

It [the beer] drinketh fresh, flowereth and mantleth exceedingly.^ 

Bacon says: 

If there be any biting or nibbling at my iiame.-^ 

Shakespeare says: 

And as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.* 

Bacon says: 

I have lived hitherto upon the scraps of my former fortunes.* 

Shakespeare says: 

He hath been at a feast of languages 
And stolen the scraps.^ 

Those scraps are good deeds past.' 

We find the rare word graveled in botli sets of writings. I can- 
recall only one other instance, in all our literature, where this 
strange word has been employed; that is in John Hay's Banty Tim. 

Bacon says : 

Her Majesty was somewhat graveled upon the offense she took at my speech 
in Parliament.* 

Shakespeare says : 

O gravel heart.® 

And when you were graveled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to 
kiss."» 

The v^or6. perturbation was a favorite with both. 

Bacon has: 

The Epicureans placed felicity in serenity of mind and freedom from per- 
turbation}'^ 

And they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions and 
perttirbatioiis}'^ 

Is it not knowledge that doth alone clear the mind of a.\\ perturbations';' . . . 
These be the clouds of error that turn into the storms oi perturbation}^ 

> Tempest, v, i. 8 Letter to Lord Burleigh, June, 1595. 

s Natural History, cent, i, § 46. ' Measure for Measure, i v, 3. 

s Letter to Mr. Davis. '°^J You Like It, iv, i. 

^ As You Like It, iii, 2. " Advancetnent of Learning, book ii. 

* Letter to Buckingham, Sept. 5, 1621. "^ Ibid., book i. 

« Love's Latior Lost, v, 1. " /" Praise 0/ Kiunvteiit^e. 

"^ Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. 



THE IDENTICAL USE OF UNUSUAL WORDS. 453 

Shakespeare has: 

O ^oX\?,\^^d^ perturbation ! golden care.' 
A g7-eat perturbation in nature} 
From much grief, from study a.ndi perturbation of the brain.* 

Bacon says : 

She had no props, or supports of her government, but those that were of her own 
tnaking.* 

Shakespeare says : 

The boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop } 

See where his Grace stands 'tween two clergymen. 
TviO props of virtue for a Christian prince.^ 

Bacon also says : 

There was also made a shoaring or underpropping act for the benevolence.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

What penny hath Rome borne, 
What men provided, what munition sent. 
To underprop this action ? * 

Here am I left to underprop his land.' 

Extirpate occurs but once in the Plays. Prosper says his 
brother proposed ^^ to extirpate me and mine." Bacon uses this then 
unusual word in the same sense: 

But for extirpating of the roots and cause of the like commotions,'*' 

Bacon says: 

This depressing of the house of York did rankle and fester the affections of 
his people." 

Shakespeare says: 

His venom tooth will rankle to the death. ''^ 

They fester 'gainst ingratitude.'^ 

Bacon says: 

He saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little 
perish his understanding.'^ 

> 2d Hejiry IV., iv, 5. « Richard III., iii, 7. " Ibid. 

" Macbeth, v, 1. '' History of Henry VII. ^"^ Richard III., i, 3. 

^ 2d Henry IV., I, 2. ^ King John, \, 2.. ^^ Coriotanus, i, g. 

* Fetic. Queen Elizabeth. ' Richard II., ii, 2. '^ Essay Of Friendship. 

^Merchant of I'cnicc, ii, i. '" History of Henry VII. 



454 FAR A LLELISMS. 

Henry Lewis says: 

The use of the verb thus, as transitive is rare.' 

But rare as it is, we find it in Shakespeare: 

Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they, 
Might in thy palace /tvv.iV^ Margaret.'^ 

Bacon says: 

I do esteem whatsoever I have or may have in this world but as trash in com- 
parison.^ 

And again: 

It shows he weighs men's minds and not their trash} 

Shakespeare says: 

Who steals my purse steals trash} 

Wrung 
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash} 

Bacon speaks of 

A shrunken and wooden posture.' 
Shakespeare speaks of 

The ruooden dialogue.'* 

Bacon says: 

Young men puffed up with the glittering show of vanity.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

The sea. puffed up with winds.'** 

The heart, puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage.'^ 

Led by a delicate and tender prince, 
Whose spirit, by divine a.mh\i\ov\ puffed. 
Makes mouths at the invisible event ''^ 

Bacon says: 

To make hope the antidote of human diseases.'^ 

Shakespeare says: 

And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuffed bosom.''* 



* Essay, Bacon, p. i6i. 
^ 2d Henry VI., iii, 2. 

3 Letter to the Earl of Salisbury. 

* Essay Of Goodness. 

* Othello, iii, 2. 

* Julius Cissar, iv, 3. 
' Essay O/ Boldness. 



" Troll us and Cressida, {,3. 

' Wisdom 0/ the A neients — Moiinon. 
•" Taming of the Shrew, i, 2. 
' ' 2d Henry II'., iv, 3. 
^"^ Hamlet, iv, 4. 
" Med. Sacrcf. 
^*Maebeth, v, 3. 



THE IDENTICAL USE OF UNUSUAL WORDS. 



455 



Trust not the physician: his antidotes are poisons.' 
The word was an unusual one, and occurs but twice in the Plays. 

Bacon, in his essay Of Masks, speaking of the decorations of the 
stage, refers to "oes or spangs," meaning, as I should take it, round, 
shining spots or spangles, like eyes, which, " as they are of no great 
cost, so are they of most glory." And in Shakespeare this figure 
repeatedly appears: 

All you fiery oes and eyes of light.- 

And he speaks in the prologue to Henry V. of the play-house as 
"this wooden O." 

And he uses the same root in another odd word, anliads — 
glances of the eye: 

Judicious (eiliads.^ 

She gave strange ailiads.^ 

Bacon says: 

Pyonner in the myne of truth.'' 

K picnecr in the mine of truth. '^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Canst work in the earth so fast; 
A -woxXhy pioneer? 

The general camp, pioneers and all.* 

This rare word occurs but three times in the Plays. 

And in Shakespeare we have, as a parallel to Bacon's " mine of 

truth ": 

O, Antony, thou mine of bounty } 

Bacon speaks of 

-Such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the. fume of subtle and delecta- 
ble speculation.'" 

While in Shakespeare we have: 

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs." 

Bacon says: 

Neither did they observe so much as the half-face of justice, in proceeding by 
indictment." 

* Titnon of Athens, iv, 3. ''Hamlet, i, 5. 

"^ M idsumtner Nighfs Dream, iii, 2. ^ Othello, iii, 3. 

^ Merry IVives 0/ Windsor, i, 3. ' Antony and Cleopatra, iv, 6. 

"^ Lear, iv, 5. '^'^Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. 

^ Proimis, §1395, p. 451. " Romeo and Juliet, i, i. 

" Letter to Burleigh. ^-History 0/ Henry I'/f. 



45 6 



PARALLELISMS. 



Shakespeare says: 

Out upon this //(?//-/"(/£-«/ fellowship.' 

This same Iialf-faccd fellow, Shadow.'-' 

Because he hath a half-face, like my father, 
With that half-face would he have all my land.' 

They both use another very rare word. 

Bacon says: 

Seditions and wars arise: in the midst of which hurly-burlies laws are silent.* 

Shakespeare says: 

When the hitrly-bnrly s done.^ 

The news of hurly-luirly innovation.'' 

This word occurs but twice in the Plays. We will see hereafter 
that the last syllable is the cipher synonym for Burleigh, — the 
Lord Treasurer, — Bacon's uncle. 

Bacon speaks of 

This ju»ij>ing or flying to generalities.' 
Shakespeare says: 

We'dy/^w/ the life to come.* 

In some sort xX. jumps with my humor.* 

Jumping o'er times. 
Turning the accomplishment of many years 
Into an hour-glass.'" 

We remember the use of a peculiar word in the mouth of 
Othello, when he makes his confession to the Venetian senate: 
Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice. 
We find the same word in Bacon : 

Disgracing your actions, extenuating and blasting of your merit." 

Also: 

How far a defense might extenuate the offense.'^ 
Also: 

In excusing, extenuating or ingenious confession.^'^ 

It is a favorite word with both; it occurs eight times in the Plays. 



' 1st Henry II'., \, 3. * Mac/>eth, i, 7. 

^ 2d Henry IV, iii, 2. ° 1st Henry IV., i, 2. 

3 Kingjohn. i, i. ^^ Henry !'., i, cho. 

•• Wisdom o/the Ancients— Orpheus. " Letter to Esse.x, Oct. 4, 1596. 

^ Macbeth, i, i. '^ Letter to the Lords. 

« 1st Henry IV., v, i. " Letter to the King. 

' Novum Orgamim. 



THE IDENriCAL USE OF UNUSUAL WORDS. 

We recall another very peculiar word in Lear: 

Oh, how this wcMcr swells up toward my heart.' 
We turn to Bacon and we read: 
The stench of feathers, or the like, they cure the rising of the mother^ 

In Bacon we find : 

The skirts of my living in Hertfordshire.* 
In Shakespeare: 

Here, in the skirts of the forest. ■* 

The skirts of this wild wood.* 

Young Fortinbras 
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there. 
Sharked up a list of landless resolutes.'^ 

Bacon says: 

Folds and knots of nature.' 

Shakespeare says : 

This knot intrinsicate of life untie.** 
Motives, those strong knots of love.' 
This knot of amity.'" 

Bacon says; 

Then there budded forth some probable hopes of succession." 

Shakespeare says: 

This is the state of man: to-day he puts /"<;;/// 
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms.'- 



457 



And again: 



Bacon: 



Buckingliain. Every man, 

. . . Not consulting, broke 

Into a general prophecy, that this tempest. 

Dashing the garment of this peace, aboded 

The sudden breach on't. 

Norfolk. Which is Inidded out}"' 



And after he had not a little /vwctf;/;-*/ himself.''' 



' l^ear, ii, 4. 

'^ Natural History, cent, i, §63. 

•' Letter to Robert Cecil, 1603. 

* As You Like It, iii, 2. 

*Ibid., V, 4. 

'^Hamlet, i, i. 

' Preface to Great Instaiiration. 



^Antony and Cleopatra, V, 

^Macbeth, iv, 3. 
">/,?/ Henry VI. 
" Felic. Queen Elizabeth. 
^"^ Henry ?'///., iii, 2. 
13 Ibid., i, 1. 
■ < History of Henry I Vt. 



458 PARA LLELISMS. 

Shakespeare: 

1 all alone l>t'nioan my outcast state.' 
He so bemoaned \\\'> son.^ 
This word occurs only twice in the Plays. 

Bacon speaks of 

The meeting-point and rendezvous of all my thoughts.^ 

Shakespeare has: 

A comfort of retirement lives in this, 
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.^ 

And again: 

And when I cannot live any longer I will do as I may; that is my rest, that i? 
the rendezvous of it.^ 

Bacon speaks of 

A compacted strength." 
Shakespeare says: 

Of imagination all compact.'' 

My heart is now compact of flint.* 

Bacon says: 

Suspicions that the mind itself gathers are but buzzes.^ 

Shakespeare says: 

Each btiz, each fancy, each complaint.'" 
I hear a buzzing of a separation." 

Bacon: 

There is a \\\&\y, jocund, and, as 1 may say, a dancing age.'^ 
Shakespeare: 

The jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top.'^ 

The quotation from Bacon gives us the complete image that 
was in the mind of the poet: — the dawn was dancing on the moun- 
tain top. 

Bacon says: 

For it is a dull thing to tire, and, as we say, to Jade anything too far,''' 

' Sonnet, ' Titus A ndroniciis, v, 3. 

"^Sd Henry /'/., ii, 5. * Essay Of Suspicion. 

3 Letter to Lord Burleigh, 1580. ^'' Lear, i, 4. 

* jst Henry IV., iv, i. ' ■ Henry VIII., ii, i. 

^ Henry V., ii, i. '^ IVisdotn of the Ancients — Pan^ 

■ * Aci7iancement of Learning, book ii. '^ Romeo and Juliet, iii, 5. 

' Midsummer \iglifs Dream, V, i. '"' Essay Of Discotirse. 



THE IDENTICAL USE OE UNUSUAL WORDS. 459 

Shakespeare says: 

To let imagination jade me.' 

Speaking of a young man overthrown and dying, Bacon says: 
The flo'tijer oi virtue cropped W\\.\\ sudden ciiance."^ 

vShakespeare speaks of 

A fresh, wvictvpped /iotuer.'* 

Comparing her son to the violets that "strew the green lap of 
the spring," the Duchess says to him: 

Well, bear you well in this new spring of time. 
Lest you be nvpprd before you come to prime.'' 

Speaking of the history of an event, Bacon says: 
The King hath so ini(Jfled it.'' 

Shakespeare says: 

Muffle your false love.* 

Love whose view is muffled ^XaW."^ 

Bacon says: 

The King resolved to make this business of Naples as a 7ureitc/i and means of 
peace.* 

Shakespeare says: 

A noble nature 
May catch a -wreneh.^ 

IVreucliiui; the true cause the false way.'" 

Bacon says: 

The corruption and ambition of the times (X\<X prick him forward." 
Our fear of Spain, which hath been the spur to this rigor. ''^ 

Shakespeare says: 

I have no spur 
To prick the sides of my intent. '•'■ 

My AuXy pricks me on.'"* 

WonoT pricks me on. Yea. but how if honor //vV/C- me off when I come on. 



' Tvclfth Nighty ii, 5. " Timoti nf Athens, ii, 2. 

^ Wisdom of the A ncients — Meiunoii. '" 3d Henry IP'., ii, i. 

^ AlVs Well that Ends Well, v, 3. '• Character 0/ Julius Ccesar. 

* Richard II., V, I. ^^ Felic. Queen Elizabeth. 
^ History o_f Henry I'll. ^^ Macbeth, i, 7. 

• Comedy of Errors, ii, 2. '* Tivo Gentlemen of 1 'erona, iii, i. 
''Romeo and Juliet, \, i. '*/ft Henry IV., v, i. 

^ History of Henry I'H. 



l.i 



460 PARALLELISMS. 

Falstaff complains on the battle-field that his bowels are "as 
hot as molten lead." Bacon, speaking of the horror of Essex when 
he found that the city would not sustain his attempted insurrec- 
tion, graphically says: 

So, as being extremely appalled, as divers that happened to see him then 
might visibly perceive in his face and countenance, and almost molten with sweat, 
though without any cause of bodily labor, but only by the perplexity and horror of 
his mind.' 

What a dramatical command of language does this sentence 

exhibit! 

While my book is being printed, Mr. J. G. Bronson, of Chicago, 
calls my attention to the following parallelism. 

In a letter of *'Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary, to Monsieur 

Critoy, Secretary of France," said by Mr. Spedding to have been 

written by Bacon, we find: 

But contrariwise her Majesty, not liking to make jvindows into men s hearts and 
secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express 
acts or affirmations, etc. 

While in the Shakespeare sonnets we have this precisely parallel 

thought: 

For through the painter must you see his skill, 
To find where your true image pictur'd lies, 
/ Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, 

Thai hath his windon>s glazed loilh thine eyes. 
Now, see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: 

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for fne 
Are "windows to my breast, wherethrough the sun 
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee: 

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art; 
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.- 

Here we have not only the same thought, but the same conclu- 
sion: that the heart can only be read by its acts. 

Bacon says: 

And there used to shuffle up a summary proceeding, by examination.'^ 
Whatsoever singularity, chance and the shuffle of things has produced.'* 
Shakespeare says: 

I am fain to shuffle, to hedge and to lurch. ^ 

'Tis not so above: 
There is no shuffling.^ 

' A Deciaraiioti py the Treasons. ♦ Gesta Grayoruin — Life and Works, vol. i, p. 335. 

^ Sonnet .xxiv. ^ Merry Wives of Windsor, ii, 2. 

^ History 0/ Henry I'll. ^ Hantlet, iii, 3. 



THE IDENTICAL USE OF UNUSUAL WORDS. 461 

Your life, good master, 
Must shuffle for itself.' 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.* 

Shuffle her avvaj\^ 

And here, as illustrating the scholarly acquirements of the 
writer of the Plays, and his tendency to enrich the English language 
by the creation of new words. I would refer to two instances, 
which, — although I have observed no parallels for them in Bacon's 
writings, — are curious enough to be noted here: 

Dost thou infamonize me among potentates. ■* 
As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured.^ 

And here we have a very unusual word used by both — used 

only once, I think, by either of them. 

Bacon: 

To win fame and to eternize your name.* 

Shakespeare: 

Eternized in all ages.' 



Bacon: 



The vain and indign comprehensions of heresy.' 



Shakespeare: 

All indign and base adversities.' 

I could give many more instances of this use in the two bodies- 
of writings of the same quaint and unusual words, did I not fear to 
offend the patience of the reader and extend this book beyond all 
reasonable proportions. 

I regret that I am not where I could have access to authorities 
which would show how many of these strange words appeared for 
the first time, in the history of our language, in the Bacon and 
Shakespeare writings. But this will constitute a work for scholars, 
hereafter. 



' Cymbeline, v, 5. 

"^Hamlet, iii, i. 

' Merry Wives of Windsor^ ii, 2. 

* Loi'e' s Labor Lost, v, 2. 

* Hamlet, iv, 7. 



* Gesta Grayoruvi — Life and Works, voL i» 

P- 336. 
^ 2d Henry V/., v, 3. 
"Letter to the King,. 1612. 
'> Othello, 1,3. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IDENTITIES OE CHARACTER. 

I saw Othello's visage in his mind. 

Othello, i,s. 

CHARACTER, after all, constitutes the man. 1 do not mean 
thereby reputation, — for that concerns the opinions of others, 
and they may or may not be deserved; but those infinite shades of 
disposition which separate one man from all other men. And as 
there were never in the world two men who possessed heads of 
precisely the same shape, so there cannot be two men having pre- 
cisely the same character. The Creator has a thousand elements 
which go to make man, and he never puts all of them in any one 
man; nor does he ever mix a part of them, in his alembic, in the 
same proportions, for any two men. " In the catalogue we all go 
for men." Anything, with the human osseous system and flesh on 
it, is, perforce, a man; but the difference between one man and 
another may be as wide as that between the primordial cell and 
the regenerated soul. 

The writer of the Plays had thought this thought, as he seems 
to have thought all other thoughts, and he exclaims: 
Oh, the difference of man and man ! ' 

When we seek, however, to institute a comparison between 
Francis Bacon and the writer of the Plays, we are met by this 
difficulty: We know, accurately enough, what was the character 
of Francis Bacon — his life reveals it; — but if we turn to the author 
of certain dramatic compositions, we are at a loss to know when 
the man himself speaks and when the character he has created 
speaks. We are more apt to see the inner nature of the writer in 
the general frame, moral and purpose of the piece, and in those 
utterances which burst from him unawares, and which have no 
necessary connection with the plot or the characters of the play, 
than in the acts performed in the course of the drama, or in the 

' Lear, iv, 2. 

462 



IDENTITIES OF CHARACTER. 463 

sentiments put into the mouths of the men who perform them, and 
which are parts of the acts and parcel of the plots. 

But, notwithstanding these difficulties, we can perceive clearly 
enough that the writer of the Plays possessed essentially the same 
traits of character which we know to have belonged to Francis 
Bacon. 

The reader has seen already that both personages, if we may 
call them such, possessed the philosophical and poetical cast of 
mind; that they were persons of unequaled genius, command of 
language, elevation of mind and loftiness of moral purpose. Let 
us go a step farther. 

I. Industry. 

I have shown on page-F27\<?>'//<', that the writer of the Plays was 
a man of vast industry, and that he elaborated his work with the 
utmost skill and pains. Knight says: 

The whole of this scene^' in the Folio, exhibits the greatest care in remodeling 
the text of the quarto. 

But let us turn to another play. 

A comparison of that part of the text of The Merry Wives of 
JVi>idsor which embraces the scene at Hemes' oak, in the edition of 
1602, with the text of the Folio of 1623, will show how elaborately 
the writer revised and improved his text. I place the new parts of 
the Folio in italics, and where it repeats the words of the edition 
of 1602 they are given in quotation marks. In this way the changes 
are made more conspicuous. 

In the edition of 1602 we have: 

Quickly. You fairies that do haunt these shady groves, 
Look round about the woods if you espy 
A mortal that doth haunt our sacred round: 
If such a one you can espy,- give him his due, 
And leave not till you pinch him black and blue. 
Give them their charge, Puck, ere they part away. 

In the Folio of 1623 we have this thus amplified: 

Quickly. " Fairies," black, gray, green and white. 
You moonshine revelers and shades of 7iigk(, 
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny. 
Attend your office and your quality. 
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. 

' Henry V., ii, i. 



464 



PARALLELISMS. 



Here there is only one word — fairies — repeated from the par- 
allel passage in the edition of 1602. 
The 1602 version continues: 

Sir Hugh. Come hither, Pead, go to the country houses, 
And when you find a slut that lies asleep, 
And all her dishes foul and room unswept, 
With your long nails pinch her till she cry 
And swear to mend her sluttish housewifery. 

In the Folio this speech is put in the mouth of Pistol, but 
greatly changed in language: 

Pistol. Elves, lis/ vour names; siletiee, you airy toys. 

Cricket, to IVindsor chimneys shalt thou leap: 

Where fires thou find' st unrakcd, and hearths " unswept," 

There " pinch " the maids as bine as bilberry: 

Our radiant queen hates "sluts " and sluttery. 

Here there are but three words that occur in the edition of 1602. 

In the 1602 copy there is added after this speech: 

Fairy. I warrant you I wilj perform your will. 

This line is lacking in the Folio, and instead of it Falstaff says: 

They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: 
I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. 

The 1602 edition gives the next speech as follows: 

Sir Hugh. Where is Pead ? Go you and see where brokers sleep, 

And fox-eyed Serjeants, with their mace, 

Go lay the proctors in the street, 

And pinch the lousy Serjeant's face: 

.Spare none of these when they are a-bed. 

But such whose nose looks plue and red. 

In the Folio we have this speech rendered as follows: 

Evans. " Where's Bead ? Go you, and" where you find a maid, 
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said. 
Rein up the organs of her fantasy. 
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy; 
But those as ' ' sleep " and think not on their sins, 
" Pinch" them, arms, leks, backs, shoulders, sides mid shins. 

But I have given enough to prove that the play, as it appears in 

the Folio of 1623, was practically re-written, and I might add that 

in every case the changes were for the better. For instance, in the 

1602 edition we have: 

Go straight, and do as I command, 
And take a taper in your hand, 
And set it to his finger ends, 
And if vou see it him offends, 



IDENTITIES OF CHARACTER. 465 

And that he starteth at the flame, 
Then he is mortal, know his name; 
If with an F it doth begin, 
Why, then, be sure, he's full of sin. 

This doggerel is transformed irt the Folio into the following: 

With trial-fire touch me his finger end:- 
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend 
And turn him to no pain; but if he start, 
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. 

Speaking of King Henry V., Romeo and Juliet, llie Merry Wives 

of Windsor and Hamlet^ Swinburne says: 

Of these four plays the two tragedies at least were thoroughly re-cast and re- 
written from end to end, the pirated editions giving us a transcript, more or less per- 
fect or imperfect, accurate or corrupt, of the text as it first came from the poet's 
hand, a text to be afterivards iiidejinitcly modified and inealettlably improved. . . . But 
King Henry V., we may fairly say, is hardly less than transformed. Not that it has 
been re-cast after the fashion of Hamlet, or even re-written after the fashion of 
Romeo and Juliet; but the corruptions and imperfections of the pirated text are 
here more flagrant than in any other instance, while the general revision of style, 
by which it is at once purified and fortified, extends to every nook and corner of 
the restored and renovated building. Even had we, however, a perfect and trust- 
worthy transcript of Shakespeare's original sketch for this play, there can be little 
doubt that the rough draft would still prove almost as different from the final 
masterpiece as is the soiled and ragged canvas now before us, on which we trace 
the outline of figures so strangely disfigured, made subject to such rude extremities- 
of defacement and defeature.' 

Is it reasonable to suppose that the author who took such pains to. 
perfect his work would have made no provision for its preservation^ 
but would die and leave one-half of the great Plays in manuscript ? 

He knew that the work of his youth was not equal to the work 

of his manhood, and he labored conscientiously to improve his 

crude designs. Dowden says: 

It is the opinion of Dyce, of Grant White and of others that Shakespeare began 
to work upon Romeo ajid Juliet not later than about 1591, that is, almost at the 
moment when he began to write for the stage, and, that having occupied him for 
a series of years, the tragedy assumed its present form about 1595-7. If this be the 
case, and if, as there is reason to believe, Shakespeare was also during many years 
interested in the subject of Hamlet, we discover that he accepted the knowledge 
that his powers were undeveloped and acted upon it, and waited until he believed 
himself competent to do justice to his conceptions. - 

De Quincey says of the Plays: 

The further on we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of 
design and self-supporting arrangement, where the careless eye has seen nothing 
but accident. 

' A Study 0/ Shak., p. 104. ''Dowden, Shak. Mind and Art . ji. 51. 



466 



PARALLELISMS. 



Swinburne illustrates this question of the industry of Shake- 
speare by the following excellent remarks: 

That priceless waif of piratical salvage, which we owe to the happy rapacity of 
a hungry publisher, is, of course, more accurately definable as the first play of 
Hamlet than as the first edition of the play. . . . The deeper complexities of the 
subject are merely indicated; simple and trenchant outlines of character are yet to 
be supplanted by features of subtler suggestion and infinite interfusion. Hamlet 
himself is almost more of a satirist than a philosopher. . . . The Queen, whose 
finished figure is now something of a riddle, stands out simply enough in the first 
sketch as confidant of Horatio, if not as accomplice of Hamlet. . . . This minor 
transformation of style in the inner play, made solely with the evident view of 
marking the distinction between its duly artificial forms of speech and the natural 
forms of speech passing between the spectators, is but one among innumerable 
indications, which only a purblind perversity of prepossession can overlook, of the 
especial store set by Shakespeare himself on this favorite work; and the excep- 
tional pains taken by him X.o preserve it for aftertime in such fullness of finished 
form as might make it loori/iiest of profound and perpetual study by the light of far 
other lamps than illuminate the stage. 

Of all vulgar errors, the most wanton, the most willful, and the most resolutely 
tenacious of life, is that belief bequeathed from the days of Pope, in which it was 
pardonable, to the days of Mr. Carlyle, in which it is not excusable, to the effect 
that Shakespeare threw off Hamlet as an eagle may moult a feather or a fool may 
break a jest; that he dropped his work as a bird may drop an egg, or a sophist a 
fallacy; that he wrote "for gain, not glory," or that, having written Hamlet, he 
thought it nothing very wonderful to have written. For himself to have written, 
he possibly, nay, probably, did not think it anything miraculous; but that he was 
in the fullest degree conscious of its wonderful positive worth to all men for all 
time, we have the best evidence possible — his own; and that not by mere word of 
mouth, but by actual stroke of hand. . . . Scene by scene, line for line, stroke 
upon stroke and touch after touch, he went over all the old labored ground again; 
and not only to insure success in his own day, and fill his pockets with contem- 
porary pence, but merely and wholly with a purpose to make it worthy of himself 
and his future students. . . . 

Every change in the text of ILamlet has impaired its fitness for the stage, and 
increased its value for the closet, in exact and perfect proportion. . . . Even in 
Shakespeare's time the actors threw out his additions; they throw out these very 
same additions in our time. The one especial speech, if any one such 
especial speech there be, in which the personal genius of Shakespeare soars 
up to the very highest of its height, and strikes down to the very deepest of 
its depth, is passed over by modern actors; it was cut away by Heminge and 
Condell.' 

It seems to me that in the face of these facts there can be no 
question that the writer of the Plays was a man of intense and 
enormous industry. 

We turn to Francis Bacon, and we find, as I have suggested 
heretofore, that he was, perhaps, the most laborious man that ever 
lived on the planet. Church says of him: 

1 Swinbunif, . / Study of ShaX-., \>. 164. 



IDENTITIES OF CHARACTER. 467 

In all these things he was as industrious, as laborious, as calmly per^ 
severing and tenacious as he was in his pursuit of his philosophical specula- 
tions.' 

He re-wrote the Essays^ we are told, thirty times. His chaplain 
tells us that he had "twelve times transcribed the Novum O rganum 
with his own hand." 

Bacon himself says: 

My great work goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter even when I add, 
so that nothing is finished until all is finished. -' 

Bacon's Pronius of Foniiularics aiiJ Elega/icit's takes us into the 
workshop of the great artist. There we see him with his blouse on, 
among his pots and brushes. We see him studying the quality of 
his canvas and grinding his own paints. These daubs upon the 
wall are part of his experiments in the contrasts of colors; these 
rude lines, traced here and there, with charcoal or chalk, are his 
first crude conceptions of figures and faces and attitudes which are 
to reappear hereafter, perfected in his immortal works. 

Here we can trace the genesis of thought, the pedigree of ideas, 
the ancestry of expressions. We look around us and realize that 
genius is neither more nor less than great powers conjoined with 
extraordinary industry. 

It is better, for humanity's future, that the statue at Stratford- 
upon-Avon should be taken down from its pedestal. It represents a 
fraud and a delusion: — a fraud in authorship, and a delusion in 
philosophy, still more destructive, to-wit: that ignorance, idleness 
and dissipation can achieve results which mankind will worship 
through all ages; that anything worth having can come out of 
nothing. 

For, in truth, the universe is industry. We are appalled when 
we think of the intense, persistent, labc^rious, incalculable, awful 
force, constantly exerted, to keep the vast whole in motion — 
from the suns to the bacilli. God might be fitly described as the 
Great Worker: — a worker without a task-master — who never 
pauses, never wearies, and never sleeps. 

No man should shrink from labor. Energy is God's glorious 
stamp set on his creatures. He who has it not is a drone in the 
hive, and unworthy the notice of his Great Master. And it has 

• Bacon, p. 57. ^ Letter to Tobie Matthew, 1610. 



468 PARALLELISMS. 

been a shameful and poisonous thing, to tlie human mind, that all 
these hundreds of years the world has been taught that the most 
marvelous of human works were produced by accident, without 
effort, by a slouching, shiftless, lazy, indifferent creature, who had 
not even force enough to provide for their perpetuation. 

Let it be known hereafter, and for all time to come, that the 
greatest of men was the most industrious of men. 

The notes in the Promus show that Bacon was studying the 
elegancies^ the niceties of language, especially of colloquial expres- 
sion, noting down not only thoughts, but peculiar and strong 
phrases and odd and forcible words. And surely there was no 
necessity for all this in his philosophical works. He makes a study 
riot only of courteous salutations, but of the continuances of speech. 
Take, for instance: 

It is like, sir, etc., (putting a man agayne into his tale interrupted).' 

Or: 

The rather bycause (contynuing another's speech).''' 

Or: 

To the end, saving that, whereas, yet, (contynuances of all kynds).^ 

Would one who contemplated works of philosophy alone, which 
were to be translated into the Latin language, for the use of pos- 
terity, devote such study to the refinements of dialogue ? And 
where do we find any of these elegancies of speech in Bacon's 
acknowledged writings ? 

II. CoMMONPLACE-BoOKS. 

Both writers possessed that characteristic habit of studious and 
industrious men, the noting down of thoughts and quotations in 
commonplace-books. The Promus is one of these. Bacon repeat- 
edly recommends the use of such helps to composition. He says: 

I hold the entry of commonplaces to be a matter of great use and essence in 
studying, as that which assureth " copia " of invention and contracteth judgment 
to a strength.'' 

And again — discussing how to "procure the ready use of 
knowledge" — he says: 

' Promus, § 1385, p. 44g. * Ibid., § 1379, p. 447. 

^ Ibid., § 1378, p. 447. ■* Ad7'anceiiicnt 0/ Learning, book ii. 



IDENTITIES OF CHARACTER. 469 

The other part of invention, which I term suggestion, doth assign and direct 
us to certain marks or places, which may excite our mind to return and pro- 
duce such knowledge as it hath formerly collected, to the end we may make 
use thereof.' 

And again he says: 

It is* of great service in studies to bestow diligence in setting down common- 
places.'^ 

' On the other hand, we turn to the writer of the Plays, and we 

find him, as I have shown on page 78, ante, recommending the use 

of commonplace-books in very much the sam.e language. He says, 

in the 76th sonnet: 

Look, what thy memory cannot contain 
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find 
These children nursed, delivered of thy brain. 
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. 

This is in the very spirit of Bacon's 

Certain marks or places, which may e.xcite our mind to return and produce 
such knowledge as it hath formerly collected. 

And we think we can see the personal habits of the writer of 
the Plays reflected in the words of his alter ego, Hamlet: 

My tables: — ^meet it is I set it down, 

That one may smile and smile and be a villain.' 

And again, in The Merry Ulves : 

I will make a brief of it in my note-book.'' 

III. A Thorough Student. 

Not only was the writer of the Plays, like Francis Bacon, vastly 
industrious, but it was the industry of a scholar: he was a student. 
He combined a life of retirement and contemplation with knowl- 
edge of affairs, as Bacon did. He realized Goethe's axiom: 

Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, 
Sich ein Clutrakter in detii Strom der Welt. 

The early plays all bespeak the student; they breathe the atmos- 
phere of the university. 
Proteus complains: 

Thou, Julia, hast metamorphosed me; 
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time. 

' Advancement of Learning, book ii. "^Hamlet, i, 5. 

2jl3Jj_ I Merry Wives flf Windsor, i, i. 



47© PARALLELISMS. 

Love's Labor Lost is full of allusions to studies: 

Biroit. What is the end of study ? 

A'/'fii;. Why, that to know which else we should not know. 

Biron. Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense? 

King. Ay, that is study s god-like reaniipt'ttsf} 

And, like Bacon, the writer of the Plays believed that books 
were a means, not an end; and that original thought was a thou- 
sand times to be preferred to the repetition of the ideas of other 
men. He says: 

Study is like the heavens' glorious sun, 

That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks; 

Small have continual plodders ever won. 
Save base authority, from others' books. '^ 

We seem to hear in this the voice of Bacon. In his essay Of 
Studies he says: 

To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for orna- 
ment, is affectation; to make judgment ivholly by their rules, is the humor of a 
scholar. 

And how Baconian are these utterances: 

Mi pe7-donate, gentle master mine, 

I am in all affected as yourself; 

Glad that you thus continue your resolve, 

To suek the siceets of sweet philosophy. 

Only, good master, while we do admire 

This virtue, and this moral discipline. 

Let's be no stoicks, nor no stocks, I pray: 

Or so devote to A ristotle's eheeks, 

As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured: 

Balk logic with acquaintance that you have. 

And practice rhetoric with your common talk: 

Music and poetry use to quicken you; 

The mathematics, and the metaphysics, 

Fall to them, as you find your stomach serves you: 

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en; 

In short, sir, study what you most affect.^ 

Here we find allusions to Bacon's love of philosophy, his dis- 
like for Aristotle, his contempt for logic, and his studies of music 
and poetry. And we note, also, the didactic and edticational tone 
of the essay, natural to the man who was always laboring to 
instruct and improve his fellow-men. 

' Af>rv'.f l.(xl'oy lost, i, i. ^Ibid. ^ 'I'nwiiig of the Slirmv. i, i. 



IDENTITIES OF CHARACTER. 



47' 



IV. His Wisdom. 

We know it is conceded thai Bacon was the wisest man of his 

time, or of all time. And wisdom is not knowledge merely of 

things. It means an accurate acquaintance with the springs of 

human tiature, and a capacity to adapt actions to events. And the 

same trait has been many times noted in the writer of the Plays. 

Henry Hallam says: 

The philosophy of Shakespeare — his intimate searching out of the human 
heart, whether in the gnomic form of sentence or in the dramatic exhibition of 
character — is a gift peculiarly his own. 

Henry Giles says of Shakespeare's genius: 

It has the power of practical intellect. Under a careless guise it implies 
serious judgment, and in the vesture of motley it pronounces many a recondite 
decision. . . . Out from its mockeries and waggeries there could be collected a 
philosophy of common sense by which the gravest might be instructed. 

I have already quoted (page 150, ante) the expression of Emer- 
son, applied to Shakespeare: 

He was inconceivably 7oise; the others conceivably. 
And of Landor: 

The wisest of men, as well as the greatest of poets. 

V. The Universality of his Mind. 

We know that Bacon's mind ranged through all created nature, 
and his learning levied tribute on everything underneath the sun. 
He had "taken all knowledge for his province." 

Osborne, a contemporary, called Bacon 

The most iiiti7\'rsal goiius I have ever seen or was like to see. 

While, on the other hand, I^e Quincey saj's : 

Shakespeare thought more finely and more extensively than all the other poets 
combined. 

Professor Dowden says of Shakespeare : 

This vast and varied mass of information he assimilated and made his own. 
. . . He was a center for the drifting capital of knowledge. His whole power of 
thought increased steadily as the years went by, both in sure grasp of the known 
and in brooding intensity of gaze upon the unknown.' 

And the same writer continues: 

Now, what does extraordinary growth imply? It implies capacity for obtain- 
ing the materials of growth; in this case materials for the growth of intellect, of 
imagination, of the will, of the emotions. It means, therefore, capacity for seeing 

'^ Shak. Mind and Art ^ p. 39. 



^ 7 2 ^'^ RALLELISMS. 

many facts, of meditating, of feeling deeply, and of controlling such feeling. . . . 
It implies a power in the organism to fit its movements to meet numerous external 
coexistences and sequences. In a word, it brings us back once again to Shake- 
speare's resoluic fidelity lo tlic fad } 

And surely "resolute fidelity to the fact" was the distinguishing 
trait of Bacon's philosophy. 

VI. Powers of Observation. 
Macaulay says of Bacon : 

In keenness of observation he has been equaled, though perhaps never sur- 
passed. But the largeness of his mind was all his own."-' 

And the great Scotsman makes this tine comparison touching 
Bacon's mind: 

With great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of comprehension, 
such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other person. The small, fine mind 
•of Labruyere had not a more delicate tact than the large intellect of Bacon. . . . 
His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Parabanon gave to Prince 
Ahmed. Fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady; spread it, and the 
armies of powerful sultans might repose beneath its shade. ** 

While, on the other hand, Sir William Hamilton calls Shake- 
speare 

The greatest known observer of human nature. 
And Richard Grant White calls him 
The most observant of men. 

VII. His Secretiveness. 

We have seen Bacon admitting that he was " a rw/r^dr/rrt' poet." 

Spedding concedes that a letter written in the name of the Earl 
of Essex to Sir Foulke Greville, about the year 1596, was written 
by Bacon.' 

There has been attributed to Bacon a work called An Historical 
Account of the Alienation Office^ published in 1590, in the name of 
William Lambarde. 

Spedding finds ^ that the letters which purported to have been 
written by the Earl of Essex to the Earl of Rutland, who was about 
to travel on the continent, containing advice as to his course of 
studies, were unquestionably the work of Bacon. 

1 Shak. Mind cuid A yt, p. 41. ■• See vol. 2, Life and Works, p. 21. 

'^ Macaulay's Essays— Bacon, p. 284. = Letters and Life of Bacon, vol. ii, p. 5. 

3 Ibid. 



IDENTITIES OE CHARACTER. - 473 

Mr. Spedding says: 

At another time he [Bacon] tries to disguise himself under a style of 

.assumed superiority, quite unlike his natural style; as in the Temporis Partus 

Masculus, where again the very same argument is set forth in a spirit of scornful 

invective, poured out upon all the popular reputations in the annals of philosophy.' 

We have seen him writing letters to Essex as from his brother 
Anthony, in which Anthony is made to refer back to himself, and 
then writing a reply from Essex, the whole to be shown to the 
Queen. 

We have seen Ben Jonson alluding to him in some birthday 

verses: 

As if a mystery thou didst. 

And in all this we see the man who under a mask could put forth 
the Plays to the world; and who, inside the Plays, could, in turn, 
conceal a cipher. 

VIII. Splendid T.\stes. 
Emerson says of Shakespeare: 

What trait of his private mind has he hidden in his dramas ? One can discern 
in his ample pictures of the gentleman and the king what forms and humanities 
pleased him; his delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful 
giving. Let Timon, let Warwick, let Antonio the merchant, answer for his great 
heart. 

When we read this the magnificence of Bacon occurs to our 
remembrance — his splendid marriage, his princely residence at 
St. Albans, his noble presents. 

Hepworth Dixon thus describes his wedding: 

Feathers and lace light up the rooms in the Strand. Cecil has been warmly 
urged to come over from Salisbury House.- Three of his gentlemen. Sir Walter 
Cope, Sir Baptist Hicks and Sir Hugh Beeston, hard drinkers and men about 
town, strut over in his stead, flaunting in their swords and plumes; yet the prodigal 
bridegroom, suinpttious in /lis tastes as in //is genius, clad in a suit of Genoese 
velvet, purple from cap to shoe, outbraves them all. The bride, too, is richly 
dight, her whole dowry seeming to be piled up on her in cloth of silver and orna- 
ments of gold.'^ 

The author of Aiilicus Coqiiitmriie, speaking of Bacon after his 
downfall, says: 

And let me give this light to his better character, from an observation of the 
late King, then Prince. Returning from hunting, he espied a coach attended with 
a goodly troop of horsemen, who, it seems, were gathered together to wait upon 
the Chancellor to his house at Gorhambury, at the time of his declension. At 

' Pref.icc- ti' part iii, vol. iii, Woi-ks. p. 171. - Personal History 0/ Lord Bacon, p. 181. 



474 



PARALLELISMS. 



which the Prince smiled: "Well, tlo we what we can," said he, " Ihis man scorns 
to go out like a snuff." 

• 

Nay, master King! And he will not go out like a snuff; — not 
till the civilization of the world is snuft"ed out. And the time will 
come when even thou, — O King, — wilt be remembered simply 
because thou didst live in the same age with him. 

IX. His Splendid Egotism. 

There was about Bacon a magnificent self-assertion. 
Dean Church says: 

He [Bacon] never affected to conceal from himself his superiority to other 
men, in his aims and in the grasp of his intelligence.' 

He recognized his own greatness, in an impersonal sort of way, 
as he might have perceived the magnitude of a mountain. Hence 
we find him beginning one of his great works in the following 
lordly manner: 

Francis of V^ertiUim thought thus, and such is the method which he within 
himself pursued, which he thought it concerned both the living and posterity to 
t>ecome acquainted with} 

And again he says: 



We turn to Shakespeare, and we find him, in the sonnets, indulg- 
ing in the same bold and extraordinary, although justifiable, ego- 
tism. He says: 

Not marble, 
Nor the gilded monuments of princes, 
Shall outlive this powerful rhyme. 
And again: 

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade. 

When in eternal lines to time thou goest: 

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, 
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.^ 

And again he says: 

Oh, 'tis the first; 'tis flattery in my seeing. 
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up} 

If these were the utterances of the man of Stratford, why did 
he not assert himself, as Bacon did, in the affairs of his age ? Would 

' A'rt<o«, p. 58. ^ l-'ilinii Labyrinthi. ^ Sonnet cxiv. 

"^ Introduction to Great histauratioii. •* Sonnet xviii. 



.JJJE.\'J7J7ES OF CHARACTER. 475 

a man with this consciousness of supreme greatness crawl away to 
Stratford, to brew beer and lend money? No; he would have 
fought for recognition, as Bacon did, to the last gasp. 

X. His Toleration. 

t 

1 have already shown that Bacon and the writer of the Plays 
were tolerant in the midst of the religious passions of the time. 
William Henry Smith says: 

In an age of bigotry and religious persecution we find Bacon and Shakespeare 
expressing a toleration of all creeds and religions.' 

Hepw^orth Dixon says, alluding to the appropriations for war 

expenses: 

James takes this money, not without joy and wonder; but when they ask him 
to banish recusants from London, to put down masses in embassadors' houses, to 
disarm all the Papists, to prevent priests and Jesuits from going abroad, he will 
not do it. In this resistance to a new persecution, his tolerant Chancellor stands 
at his back and bears the odium of his refusal. Bacon, who thinks the penal laws 
too harsh already, will not consent to inflame the country, at such a time, by a 
new proclamation; the penalties are strong, and in the hands of the magistrates; 
he sees no need to spur their zeal by royal proclamations or the enactment of more 
savage laws. Here is a chance for Coke. Raving for gibbets and pillories in a 
style to quicken the pulse of Brownists, men who are wild with news from Heidel- 
berg or Prague believe in his sincerity and partake of his heat. To be mild now, 
many good men think, is to be weak. In a state of war, philosophy and tolerance 
go to the wall; when guns are pounding in the gates, even justice can be only done 
at the drumhead.-' 

Bacon's downfall, as we shall see hereafter, was largely due to 

this refusal to persecute the helpless at the bidding of the fanatical, 

led on by the brutal and sordid Coke. 

XI. His Benevolenck. 

And in the same spirit he at all tiines preached mercy and gen- 
erosity, in both his acknowledged works and in the Plays. 

Bacon, in his essay Of Discourse, enumerates, among the things 
which ought to be privileged from jest, " religion, matters of state, 
and any case that desen^eth pity." 

While Carlyle says of Shakespeare: 

His' laughter seems to pour forth in floods. . . . Not at mere weakness — at 
misery or poverty never. 

Bacon says: 

The state and bread of the poor have always been dear to my heart. 

' Bacon and S/iak., p. 88. ^ Pfrsa;:.i/ Histcry of l.or,{ Bacon, p. 325. 



476 PARALLELISMS. 

He labors 

To lift men out of their necessities and miseries. 
He seeks, " in a despised weed, the good of all men." 
Bacon describes one of the fathers of " Solomon's House," in 
The New Atlantis, and says: 

He had an aspect as if he pitied men. 

We turn to Shakespeare and we find the same great traits of 
character. 

Charles Knight speaks of 

Shakespeare's unvarying kindness toward wretched and oppressed humanity, 
in however low a shape. 

Gerald Massey says: . 

He has infinite pity for the suffering and struggling and wounded by the way. 
The most powerful and pathetic pleadings on behalf of Christian charity, out of the 
New Testament, have been spoken by Shakespeare. He takes to his large, warm 
heart much that the world usually casts out to perish in the cold. There is nothing 
too poor or mean to be embraced within the circle of his sympathies.' 

Barry Cornwall refers to "the extensive charity which Shake- 
speare inculcates." 

Birch says: 

He has, more than any other author, exalted the love of humanity. However 
he may indulge in invective against the artificial systems of religion, and be found 
even speaking against Christianity, yet in his material and natural speculations he 
endeavors to give philosophical consolation to mankind, to inculcate submission to 
inevitable circumstances and encourage scientific investigation into the nature of 
tilings.'- 

The reader will probably pause to see whether I have not mis- 
placed this quotation, so complete!}' does it fit the character and 
purposes of Francis Bacon. But no; it was written by an English 
clergyman, in an essay upon the religion of Shakespeare; and the 
author probably never heard of the theory that Bacon wrote the 
Plays. 

I append a few illustrative extracts from the Plays, in corrobo- 
ration of these opinions: 

'Tis a cruelty 
To load a falling man." 

Neither in our hearts nor outward eyes. 
Envy the great nor do the low despise.'* 

^ SoinifLs oj" S/ia/c, p. 549. ^ Henry I'll I,, v, 2, 

"^ Philosiif>liy aiut Rclig!0>i of Shak..,^. 10. ^ Per ides y\\, t,. ' 



IDENTITIES OE CIIAKACIEK. 477 

There is a soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distill it out.' 

Oh, I have ta'en 
Too little care of this ! Take physic, pomp; 
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel; 
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them 
And show the heavens more just.- 

XII. His Command Over the Emotions. 

Ben Jonson says of Bacon: 

He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry or pleased at his 
devotion. No man had their affections [passions] more in his power. 

Pope says of Shakespeare: 

The power over our passions was never possessed in a more eminent degree, 
or displayed in so different instances. . . . We are surprised the moment we 
weep, and yet, upon reflection, find the passion so just, that we should be sur- 
prised if we had not wept, and wept at that very moment.^ 

XIII. His Wit. 

Basil Montagu says of Bacon: 

His wit was brilliant, and when it flashed upon an}' subject it was never with 
ill-nature, which, like the crackling of thorns, ending in sudden darkness, is only 
fit for the fool's laughter. The sparkling of his wit was that of the precious dia- 
mond, valuable for its worth and weight, denoting the riches of the mine.'' 

And Macaulay, a severe critic, and in many things, so far as 
Bacon was concerned, an unjust one, says of his wit: 

The best jest-book in the world is that which he dictated from memory, with- 
out referring to any book, on a day on which illness had rendered him incapable of 
serious study. -^ 

And again he says: 

But it occasionally happened that, when he was engaged in grave and pro- 
found investigations, his wit obtained the master}' over all his other faculties, and 
led him into absurdities into which no dull man could possibly have fallen." 

And again Macaulay says: 

In wit, if by wit be meant the power of perceiving analogies between things 
which appear to have nothing in common, he never had an equal — not even Cowley, 
not even the author of Hudibras. Indeed he possessed this faculty, or this faculty 
possessed him, to a morbid degree. When he abandoned himself to it, without re- 
serve, as he did in the Sapientia Vetertim, and at the end of the second book of the 
De Augmeittis, the feats which he performed were not merely admirable, but portent- 
ous and almost shocking. On those occasions we marvel at him as clowns on a fair 
day marvel at a juggler, and can hardly help thinking that the devil must be in him.' 

' Henry J',, iv, i. ^ Macaulay's Essays — Bacon, p, 270. 

''Lear, iii, 4. s Jbid., p. 285. 

3 William H. Smith, Bacon and S/iak., p. 6. ' Ibid., p. 285. 
* Works oy Lord Bacon, vol. i, p. 116. 



478 



r.\RAi.i.i:i.isMs. 



And Ben Jonsoii says of Bacon; 

His language, ■7i</trir he could spare or pass hy a Jest, was nobly censorious. 

I need not cite many authorities to prove that the writer of the 
Shakespeare Plays was not only a great wit, but that his wit somt^- 
times overmastered his judgment. 

Hudson says of Falstaff: 

I must add that, with Shallow and Silence for his theme, Falstaff's wit fairly 
grows gigantic, and this, too, without any abatement of its frolicsome agility. 
The strain of humorous exaggeration with which he pursues the theme is indeed 
almost sublime. Yet in some of his reflections thereon, we have a clear though 
brief view of the profound philosopher tinderlying the profligate humorist and make- 
sport, for he there discovers a breadth and sharpness of observation and a depth of 
practical sagacity such as might have placed him [Shakespeare] in the front rank of 
statesmen and sages. ' 

XIV. Great Aims. 

We know tlie grand objects Bacon kept continually before his 
mind's eye. 

The writer of the Plays declares, in sonnet cxxv, that he had 

Laid great bases for eternity. 

What were they.? What "great bases for eternity" had the 
Stratford man built or attempted to build ? 

Francis Bacon wrote The New Atlantis., an attempt to show to 
what perfections of civilization developed mankind might attain 
in a new land, an island; and we find Shakespeare also planning 
an improved commonwealth upon another island — the island that 
was the scene of The Tcitipest. And we find him borrowing therein 
from Montaigne. 

Gonzalo says in the play: 

Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, ... 
r the commonwealth, I would by contraries 
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic 
Would I admit; no name of magistrate; 
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty. 
And use of service none; contract, succession. 
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none: 
No use of metal, corn, or wine or oil: 
No occupation; all men idle, all — 
And women, too; but innocent and pure. 
No sovereignty: 

All things in common nature should produce 
Without sweat or endeavor; treason, felony, 

' Shak. I.ifc and Art ^ vol. ii, p. 94. 



IDENTITIES OF CHARACTER. 479 

Sword, pike, knife, gun or need of any engine. 
Would I not have, but nature should bring forth, 
Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance. 
To feed my innocent people.' 

Here, as in The Ncio Atlantis, we see the philosopher-poet devis- 
ing schemes to lift men out of their miseries — to "feed the inno- 
cent people." 

X\' His (toopness. 

Coleridge says: 

Observe the fine humanity of Shakespeare, in thai his sneerers are all villains.- 

Gerald Massey says of Shakespeare: 

There is nothing rotten at the root, nothing insidious in the suggestion. . Vice 
never walks abroad in the mental twilight wearing the garb of virtue. - 

Coleridge says: 

There is not one really vicious passage in all Shakespeare. 

We know that Bacon, in his acknowledged works, said nothing 
that could impair the power of goodness in the world. 

XVI. Anoiher CuRiois Fact. 

While the last pages of this work are going through tlie press, 
my friend Professor Thomas Davidson sends me a letter addressed 
to him by a correspondent (M. Le B. G.), in which occur these words: 

Please look at the 6th chapter of Peter Bayne's new Life 0/ Lutlier, if you 
have not already read it. It is called The Century of Luther and Shalccspeare. It 
is a glorification of Shakespeare, but, curiously enough, quotes from Brewer, 
about the correspondence in altitude between Bacon and Luther; and then goes on 
to show that Shakespeare was perfectly familiar not only with the Bible but with 
Luther's thought, and with special incidents of his history. 

Bayne says that all the main points in the theology of the Reformation could 
be pieced together from the dramas of Shakespeare. One would not naturally 
look in a Life of Luther for any testimony on the " Baconian Theory," so please 
(if it seems worth while to you) to call Mr. Donnelly's attention to this rather cur- 
ious chapter. 

I quote this with pleasure, although a little out of place in this 
chapter, as another case where the indentations of the Baconian 
theory fit into all other related facts and, as an additional evidence 
that the Plays were not pumped out of ignorance by the handle of 
genius, under the pressure of a play-actor's necessities, but were 
the works of a broadly-learned man, w^ho was fully abreast of all 

' Teiu/'fii. ii, 2. "^ Sonnets (if S/iakes/>earc\ ;>. 5,49. 



4<So 



PARALLELISMS. 



the affairs of his day, and who had read cverythino- that was acces- 
sible in that age, in every field of thought. 

In short, each new addition to our information requires us to 
widen the shelves of the library of the man who wrote the Plays. 

XVII. Conclusions. 

When, therefore, we institute a comparison between the per- 
sonal character and mental disposition of Francis Bacon and that 
of the man who wrote the Plays, we find that: 

1. Both were poetical. 

2. Both were philosophical. 

3. Both were vastly industrious. 

4. Both were students. 

5. Both were profoundly wise. 

6. Both possessed a universal grasp of knowledge. 

7. Both had splendid tastes. 

8. Both were tolerant of religious differences of opinion. 

9. Both were benevolent. 

10. Both were wits. 

11. Both were possessed of great aims for the good of man. 

1 2. Both were morally admirable. 

I cannot better conclude this chapter than with a comparison 
extracted from the work of Mr. William Henry Smith, the patri- 
arch of the Baconian discussion in England. Mr. Smith quotes 
Archbishop Whately as follows: 

There is an ingenious and philosophical toy called " a thaumatrope," in which 
two objects painted on opposite sides of a card — for instance, a man and a horse, 
a bird and a cage, etc. — are, by a quick rotary motion, made so to impress the eye 
in combination as to form one picture — of the man on the horse's back, the bird 
in the cage, etc. As soon as the card is allowed to remain at rest, the figures, of 
course, appear as they really are, separate and on opposite sides.' 

Mr. Smith continues: 

Bacon and Shakespeare we know to be distinct individuals, occupying posi- 
tions as opposite as the man and the horse, the bird and the cage; yet, when we 
come to agitate the question, the poet appears so combined with the philosopher, 
and the philosopher with the poet, we cannot but believe them to be identical, 

1 Bacon and Shak., p. 8g. 



CHAPTER IX. 

. IDENTITIES OE STY/./-:. 

1 replied, " Nay, Madam, rack him not ; . . . rack his style." — Bacon. 

WE come now to an interesting branch of our subject, to-wit: 
Is there any resemblance between the style of Francis 
Bacon and that of the writer of the Plays ? 

I. The Genius of Shakespeare. 

And first let us ask ourselves, what are the distinguishing feat- 
ures of the writings which go by the name of Shakespeare ? In 
other words, what is his style? 

It might be described as the excess of every great faculty of 
the soul. Reason, the widest and most profound; imagination, the 
most florid and tropical; vivacity, the most sprightly and untiring; 
passion, the most burning and vehement; feeling, the most earnest 
and intense. 

In other words, it is a human intellect, multiplied many hun- 
dred-fold beyond the natural standard. Behind the style and the 
works we see the man: — a marvelous, many-sided, gigantic soul; a 
monster among thinkers; — standing with one foot upon the bare 
rocks of reason, and the other buried ankle-deep in the flowers of 
the imagination; spanning time and accomplishing immortality. 

Behind the tremendous works is a tremendous personality. 

Not from a weak or shallow thought 
His mighty Jove young Phidias wrought. 

His was a ponderous, comprehensive, extraordinary intelligence, 
inflamed as never man's was, before or e-ince, by genius; and filled 
with instincts and purposes which we cannot but regard as divine. 
Every part of his mind was at white heat — \\. flamed. He has left 
all mankind to repeat his expressions, because never before did 
any one so captivate and capture words, or crush them into sub- 
jection, as he did. The operations of his mind — its greed, its 

spring, its grasp, its domination — were, so to speak, ferocious. It 

481 



482 FAKALLEUSMS. 

is no wonder that his body showed the marks of premature age; it 
is a surprise that this immense, vehement and bounding spirit did 
not tear the flesh into disorganization long before his allotted time. 

And yet, high aloft in the charioteer's seat, above the plunging, 
rebellious, furious Passions, sat the magnificent Reason of the man; 
curbing, with iron muscles, their vehemence into measured pace, 
their motion into orderly progression. 

Hear what the great Frenchman, H. A. Taine, says of Shake- 
speare: 

I am about to describe an extraordinary species of mind, perplexing to all the 
French modes of analysis and reasoning, all-powerful, excessive, master of the 
sublime as well as of the base; the most creative mind that ever engaged in the 
exact copy of the details of actual existence, in the dazzling caprice of fancy, in the 
profound complications of superhuman passions; a nature poetical, immortal, 
inspired, superior to reason by the sudden revelations of its seer's madness; so 
extreme in joy and grief, so abrupt of gait, so agitated and impetuous in its trans- 
ports, that this great age alone could have cradled such a child.' 

And, speaking of the imagination of the great poet, Taine says: 

Shakespeare imagines with copiousness and excess; he scatters metaphors 
profusely over all he writes; every instant abstract ideas are changed into images; 
it is a series of paintings which is unfolded in his mind.- 

And the same writer says: 

This exuberant fecundity intensifies qualities already in excess, and multiplies 
a hundred-fold the luxuriance of metaphor, the incoherence of style, and the 
unbridled vehemence of expression." 

And Richard Grant White speaks to much the same purpose: 

Akin to this power in Shakespeare is that of pushing hyperbole to the verge 
of absurdity; of mingling heterogeneous metaphors and similes which, coldly 
examined, seem discordant; in short, of apparently setting at naught the rules of 
rhetoric.'' 

And again White says: 

Never did intellectual wealth equal in degree the boundless riches of Shake- 
speare's fancy. He compelled all nature and all art, all that God had revealed, 
and all that man had discovered, to contribute materials to enrich his style and 
enforce his thought; so that the entire range of human knowledge must be laid 
under contribution to illustrate his writings. This inexhaustible mine of fancy, 
furnishing metaphor, comparison, illustration, impersonation, in ceaseless alterna- 
tion, often intermingled, so that the one cannot be severed from the other, . . . 
is the great distinctive intellectual trait of Shakespeare's style. In his use of 
simile, imagery and impersonation he exhibits a power to which that of any other 

' Taine's History of English Liieraiiire, ' Ibid., p. 213. 

pp. 204 and 205. '' Li/e and Genius 0/ Shak.^ p. 229. 

'■' Ibid., p. 211. 



IDENTITIES OF STYLE. 



aH 



poet in this respect cannot be compared, even in the way of derogation, for it is not 
only superior to but unlike any other.' 

When we turn to Bacon, we find the formal, decorous, world- 
respecting side of the man's character. Under the disguise of the 
player of Stratford he could give free vent to all the passions and 
enormities of his soul. In the first capacity he was a philosopher, 
courtier and statesman; in the latter he was simply a poet and 
play-writer. In the one he was forced to maintain appearances 
before court, bar and society; in the other, behind his mask, he 
was utterly irresponsible and could turn out his very soul, with 
none to question him. 

Hence we must look for the characteristics of the poet in a 
modified form in those of the philosopher. He is " off the tripod." 
But even then we shall find the traces of the constitution of the 
mind which distinguished Shakespeare. 

I have just cited Taine's description of Shakespeare; let us see 
what he has to say of Bacon: 

In this band of scholars, dreamers and inquirers, appears the most comprehen- 
sive, sensitive, originative of the minds of the age, Francis Bacon; a great and 
luminous intellect, one of the finest of this poetic progeny, who, like his predecessors, 
was naturally disposed to clothe his ideas in the most splendid dress: in this age a 
thought did not seem complete until it had assumed form and color. But what 
distinguishes him from the others is, that with him an image only serves to con- 
centrate meditation. He reflected long, stamped on his mind all the parts and 
relations of his subject; he is master of it, and then, instead of exposing this com- 
plete idea in a graduated chain of reasoning, he embodies it in a comparison so 
expressive, exact, lucid, that behind the figure we perceive all the details of the 
idea, like liquor in a fine crystal vase.- 

And a writer in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, speaking of Bacon, 
says: 

A sentence from the Essays can rarely be mistaken for the production of any 
other writer. The short, pithy sayings, 

Jewels, five words long, 
That on the stretched forefinger of all time 
Sparkle forever, 

have become popular mottoes and household words. The style is quaint, original, 
abounding in allusions and raitticisws, and rich, even to gorgeousness, with piled-up 
analogies and metaphors. 

Alexander Smith says of Bacon's Essays: 

lie seems to have written his Essays with the pen of Shakespeare. 

' Life and Genius of SItali., p. 252. '^ Taine's History of English Liieratitre, p. 153. 



484 PARALLELISMS. 

E. P. Whipple says of them: 

They combine the greatest brevity with the greatest beauty of expression. 

A. F. Blaisdell says: 

Notice, also, the poctrv of his style. So far as is known, he wrote but one 
poem, but all his literary works are instinct luit/i poetry, in the wider sense of the 
word. Sometimes it is seen in a beautiful simile or a felicitous phrase; sometimes 
in a touch of pathos, more often in the rhythmical cadence of a sentence which 
clings to the memory as only jioetry can. 

Even the passion and vchcinctice which we have found to be such 

distinguishing traits of Shakespeare's genius are found in Bacon. 

The laborious, but incredulous, Spedding remarks: 

Bacon's mind, with its fullness and eagerness of thought, was at all times apt to 
outrun his powers of grammatical expression, but also of the history of the English 
language, then gradually finding its powers and settling, but not settled, into form.^ 

This outrunning the powers of grammatical expression is the 

very trait which has been observed in Shakespeare; — as when he 

makes Mark Antony say of the wound inflicted upon Caesar by the 

dagger of Brutus: 

This was the 7nost unkindest cut of all.* 

And here we are reminded of Bacon's theory that the English 
grammar should be reorganized; that he thought of making a 
grammar for himself. 

And Spedding says of the Natural Histor\\ a most dry subject: 

The addresses to the reader are full of weighty thought and passionate elo- 
quence. '^ 

But there was one man who knew Francis Bacon better than 
any and all others of his age; that was his "other self," Sir Tobie 
Matthew. He was in the heart of all Bacon's secrets; he knew just 
what Bacon had written, because his compositions were all sub- 
mitted to him in the first instance, hot from the mint of the 
author's great mind. He knew Bacon's acknowledged writings, 
and he knew, also, those "concealed" writings which constituted 
him, in his judgment, "the greatest wit of our country, . . . 
though he be known by another name." And Sir Tobie was a 
scholar and an author, and an eminently conscientious and 
righteous man; who had suffered exile from his native land, and 
had sacrificed all the victories of life for his religious convictions; 

1 Li/e and Works, vol. 1, p. 145. ^ Li/f niid ll'ioks, vol. vii, p. 381. 

"^Julius CcFsar, iii, 2. 



IDENTITIES OE STYLE. 485 

and the man who does that, whatever may be his creed or his 
dogmas, is worthy of all praise and honor. And Sir Tobie, with 
all thisknowledge of Bacon, spoke of him, long after his death, in 
terms which are extravagant if applied to Bacon's acknowledged 
writings, but which fit precisely into the characteristics of the 
Shakespeare Plays. He said: 

... A man so rare in knowledge, of so many several kinds, endued with the 
facility and felicity of expressing it all in so elegant, significant, so abundant, and 
yet so choice and ravishing a way of words, of metaphors, of allusions, as perhaps 
the world hath not seen since it was a world.' 

II. A SrARTLiNG Revelation. 

And even as this book is being printed, a writer in the Chicago 
Tribune calls attention to the surprising fact that the New English Dii- 
tioiiary\ now being published in England, on a magnificent scale, and 
in which is given the time when and the place where each English 
word made its first appearance, proves that in the first two hundred 
pages of the work there are one Jiundrcd and forty-six words, now in 
common use, which were invented, or formed out of the raw mate- 
rial of his own and other languages, by tlie man who wrote the 
Shakespeare Plays. And the writer shows that, at this rate, our 
total indebtedness to the man we call Shakespeare, for additions 
to the vocabulary of the English tongue, cannot be less than five 
thousand words. I quote: 

Rome owed only one word to Julius Caesar. The nature of our debt will be 

more apparent if we examine some of these hundred and a half of Shakespearean 

words, all so near the beginning of the alphabet that the last one of them is air. 

We owe the poet the first use of the word <7/r itself in one of its senses as a noun, 

and in three as a verb or participle. He first said air-drawn and airless. He 

added a new signification to airy and aerial. Nobody before him had written 

aired, and more than a tithe of the verbal gifts now in view were such perfect 

participles. Well-nigh as many were adverbs. In no previous writer have Dr. 

Murray's argus eyes detected accidentally, nor any of the following: Abjectly, 

acutely, admiringly, adoptedly, adversely. How our fathers could exist so long 

without some of these vocables must move our special wonder. To absolutely, 

accordingly, actively and affectionately Shakespeare added a new sense. It is 

not a little surprising that the word abreast was never printed before the 

couplet: 

My soul shall thine keep company to heaven: 
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast. 

Of the 146 words and meanings first given us by Shakespeare at least two-thirds 
are of classical origin. . . . The strangest thing seems to be that so few of Shake- 

' Address to tite Reader^ prcti.xcd to Collection of English Letters, 1660. 



486 PARALLELISMS. 

speare's innovations — not so much as one-fifth — have become obsolete. He gave 
them not only life, but immortalit}-. 

Is anybody shallow enough to believe that the play-actor of 
Stratford — selling malt and suing his neighbors — had the brain, 
the capacity or the purpose to thus create a language ? 

I say a language, for it is to be remembered that the ordi- 
nary peasant or navvy of England has but about three hundred words 
in his vocabulary. And here was one man who, we are told, added 
to the English tongue probably sevoitccn tiDics the number of words 
used by the inhabitants of Stratford in that age. 

And when we turn to Bacon's Fronius, or storehouse of sug- 
gestions for elegancies of speech, we find him in the very work of 
manufacturing words to enrich the English tongue. We see him, in 
Promus notes 1214 and 1215, playing on the words ""Abedd — ro{yi)se 
you — owt bed'': and then we find him developing this into uprouse, 
a word never seen before in the world; and, as Mrs. Pott has shown, 
this reappears in the play of Roineo and Juliet in connection with 
golden sleep (which is also found in the Promus notes') thus: 

But where unbruised youth with unstuffed brain 
Doth couch his limbs, Xh^xo. golden sleep doth reign: 
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure 
Thou art uproused hy some distemperature.' 

And, close at hand, in these Promus notes, we find the word 
rome, which may have been a hint jotted down for the name of 
Romeo. And we find that Bacon, in these Promus notes, coined 
and used for the first time barajar [ior shufjie), real, brazed, perad- 
venture, etc. 

In other words, we learn now that the writer of the Plays added 
five thousand new words to the English language. We look into 
Bacon's work-shop and we find the great artist at work manu- 
facturing words. We peep into the kitchen of New Place, Strat- 
ford, and we see the occupant brewing beer ! Who wrote the plays ? 

And Bacon notes that the English language has been greatly 
enriched during Elizabeth's reign ! 

More than this, Mrs. Pott has shown in her great work' that 
Bacon, anxious to humanize his race and civilize his age, created 
and introduced into our speech those pleasant conventionalities 

' /Vcw?/.r, note 1207. "^ Rotneo and Juliet, W, j,. • ^ Promus, ^p. 61. 



IDENTITIES OF STYLE. 487 

and sweet courtesies with which we now sahite each other; as 
"good-morrow," "good-night," etc.; and that he is found jotting 
them down in his Promus notes, from which they reappear in the 
Shakespeare Pla3's, for the first time in English literature. And all 
this goes to confirm my view, hereinbefore expressed, of the great 
pu7-poscs which lie behind the Plays: for in it all, with the creation 
of the five thousand new words, we see the soul of the philan- 
thropist, who, "in a despised weed, had procured the good of all 
men." Mighty soul ! We are but beginning to catch glimpses of 
thy vast proportions ! Shame on the purblind ages that have 
failed to recognize thy light. 

And in connection with all this we must remember Bacon's 
modest remark, that during the reign of Elizabeth the powers of 
the English language had been vastly increased. 

Why, this man overshadows the world ! He has not only revo- 
lutionized our philosophy, delighted our eyes, enraptured our ears 
and educated our hearts, but he has even armed our tongues with 
new resources and fitted our English speech to become, as it will 
in time, the universal language of the globe. 

III. Other Details of Style. 
The great Scotch essayist. Mackintosh, said of Bacon: 

A^o man e7'er itnited a )i!ore poetical style to a less poetical philosophy. One great 
end of his discipline is to prevent mysticism and fanaticism from obstructing the 
pursuit of truth. With a less brilliant fancy he would have had a mind less quali- 
fied for philosophical inquiry. His fancy gave him tha^ power of illustrative meta- 
phor, by which he seemed to have invented again the part of language which 
respects philosophy; and it rendered new truths more distinctly visible even to his 
own eye, /;; their bright clothing of imagery., 

And, again, the same v^'Hter says: 

But that in which he most excelled all other men was the range and compass 
of his intellectual view, and the power of contemplating many and distant objects 
together without indistinctness or confusion, which he himself has called the "dis- 
cursive" or "comprehensive" understanding. This wide-ranging intellect was 
illuminated by the brightest fancy that ever contented itsetf loith the office of only min- 
istering to Heason: and from this singular relation of the two grand faculties of man 
it has resulted that his philosophy, though illustrated still more than adorned by 
the titmost splendor of imagery, continues still subject to the undivided supremacy of 
Intellect. In the midst of all the prodigality of an imagination which, had 
it been independent, loould have been poetical, his opinions remained severely 
rational.* 

' The Moitern Briiisli Essayists — ^Tackintnsli, p. i8. 'Ibid., p. 17. 



^88 PARALLELISMS. 

And, on tlic other hand, as matching this utterance, Mr. T. B. 
Shaw finds in both Bacon and Shakespeare the same combination 
of reason and imagination. He says, speaking of Bacon: 

In his style there is the same quality which is applattded in Shakespeare , a com- 
bination of the intellectual and the imaginative, the closest reasoning in the boldest 
metaphor. 

And Taine says of Bacon: 

Like the ports, he peoples nature with instincts and desires; attributes to bodies 
an actual voracity; to the atmosphere a thirst for light, sounds, odors, vapors, 
which it drinks in; to metals a sort of haste to be incorporated with acids.' 

The same trait of impersonation is found in Shakespeare car- 
ried to the greatest excess. The echo becomes 

The babbling gossip of the air.- 

The wind becomes " the wanton wind; '" "the bawdy wind, that 
kisses all it meets; " " the scolding wind; " " the posting wind," etc. 
In short, every quality of nature becomes a living individuality. 

He puts a spirit of life in everything, 

Till wanton nature laughs and leaps with him. 

IV. Pleonasms. 

Speaking of the affluence and superabundance of Shakespeare's 
genius, Taine says: 

These vehement expressions, so natural in their upwelling, instead of follow- 
ing one after the other slowly and with effort, are hurled out by hundreds with an 
impetuous ease and abundance like the bubbling waves from a welling spring, 
which are heaped together, rise one above another, and find nowhere room enough 
to spread and exhaust themselves? You may find in Jxomeo and fiiliet a score of 
examples of this inexhaustible inspiration. The two lovers pile up an infinite 
mass of metaphors, impassioned exaggerations, clenches, contorted phrases, 
amorous extravagances.'^ 

This trait leads in botii writers to that use of redundant words 
known in rhetoric c\s pleonasm. It marks a trait of mind which can- 
not be satisfied with a bare statement of fact, but in its prodigal 
richness heaps adjective on adjective and phrase on phrase. 

Take this instance from Bacon: 

Everything has been abandoned either to the mists of tradition, the -whirl and 
confusion of argument, or the waves and mazes of chance, and desultory, ill-com- 
bined experiments. ■* 

' Taine's History 0/ F.iiglisli I.itfi-aturi\ ^Taine's History oj" Engtis/i Literature^ 

P- 155- P- 213- 

2 Twetftli Niglit, i, 5. ^ Novidii Orgaituni, book 1. 



IDENTITIES OF STYLE. 489 

Again he says: 

Those acts which 2,xfi pcniiaiicnt and perpelunl.'^ 

And here we see the piling-on of adjectives often observed in 
Shakespeare, what Swinburne calls " an effusion or effervescence of 
words": 

It is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a 
number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and, I may term them, vemiieulate questions.'^ 

And again he speaks of 

The flo7ving and 7i<aten' vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop. 

And again: 

Was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious engine.''' 

All things dissolve into anajrliy and confusion.^ 

The emulation and provocation of their example have much quickened and 
strengthened \.\\^ stale of learning.^ 

And again: 

All things may be endo-wed and adorned with speeches, but knowledge itself is 
more beautiful than any apparel of words that can be put upon it.*' 

We turn to Shakespeare, and we find Grant White noting the 

same tendency. He says: 

Shakespeare mingles words of native and foreign origin which are synonymous 
so closely as to subject him to the charge of pleonasm; ... he has, for instance,' 
in King Jolin, "infinite and boundless reach;" in Measure for Measure, "rebate 
««<//'///■;// his natural edge ;" and in Othello, "to such exsufflicate and hlouni sur- 
mises." '' 

Let me give some further examples of this inherent tendency of 

Shakespeare to pour words in superabundance over thoughts: 

I am one 
Whom the vile hhnvs and buffets of the world 
Have so incensed.'* 

Ifugged and embraced hy the strumpet wind.'' 

Into the harsh and boisteivus tongue of war.'" 

Of hinds and peasants, rude and i/ierciless.^^ 

That it may ^;v'7t' and sprout as high as heaven. '■•* 

Hath given them heart and courage to proceed.'-* 

"^ Advance)iifiit 0/ Learuiiig, book i. ^ Macbctli, iii, r. 

2 Ibid. ' Merchant 0/ I 'enice, ii, 6. 

aibid. ^^ 2d Henry n'.,\v,\. 

■1 Ibid. ^'^ 2d Henry I'l., iv, 4. 

•'■Ibid. ^'^2d Henry IV.,\\,T,. 

« In Praise of h'no^vtedjre. '' 2d Henry VI., iv, 4. 

"' Life and Genius of Stink., p. 219. 



49° 



PARALLELISMS. 



Within the hook and volume of my brain.' 

If that rebellion 
Came like itself in has,' and abject routs.' 

'Yo Jlccr and sioni at our solemnity.'' 

As broad and general as the casing air. ^ 

Luxurious, avaricious, y"(7/,ff, deceiijiil.'' 

What trash is Rome, 
What rubbish and lohat offal.'' 

Led by a delicate and tender prince.' 

Tortii'e and errant from his course of growth.* 

Things base and idle, holding no (luantity." 

Hast thou so cracked and splitted n\\ poor tongue.'" 

And I will stoop and hnuible mv intents." 

An unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticed.'^ 

(iarnished and decked in modest compliment." 

Divert and crack, rend and deracinate 
The unitv and married calm of states 
Quite from their fixture.'^ 

I might heap up many more examples to demonstrate the unity 
of style in the two sets of writings in this particular, but it seems 
to me that it is not necessary. I will close this branch of the sub- 
ject with a quotation from Mark Antony's speech over the dead 
body of Caesar: 

Oh, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers . 

• • • 

Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips, 
To beg the voice and uttei-ance of my tongue ! 
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men: 
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy; 
Blood and destruction shall be so in use.'"' 



' Hamlet, i, 5. 

"^Bd Henry 11'., iv, i. 

■" Cyvtbetine, i, 4. 

■• Macbeth, iii, 4. 

''Ibid., iv, 3. 

'"Julius Cessar, i, 3. 

' Hamlet, iv, 4. 

* Troilus and Cres.f/i/17, i, 3, 



" .T//il.s!/u//>ic/- y/ght's Dream, i, x. 
' " Comedy 0/ Errors, V , 1 . 
^^ 2d Henry IV., V. 1. 
^'^ Merchant 0/ J'enice, iii, 2, 
'■'^ Henry I ',, ii, 2. 
'* Troilns and Crcs.sida, i, 3. 
'^ /it tins Cu'sar, iii, i. 



1 DENT I TIES OF STYLE. 491 

It is no wonder tliat the precise and single-minded Hume 
thought that both Bacon and Shakespeare showed 

A want of simplicity and purity of diction, with defective taste and elegance. 
Certainly no other men in the world ever wasted such an afflu- 
ence of words, thoughts, images and metaphors in their writings. 

V. Condensation of Style. 

Another marked feature of the style of both sets of writings is 
their marvelous compactness and condensation. Macaulay says 
of Bacon: 

He had a wonderful faculty for packing thought close and rendering it portable.' 
We need only turn to Bacon's Essays to find ample confirmation 
of this "statement. 

Take one instance, from one of his letters, wliich might serve to 
pass into a proverb: 

A timorous man is everybody's, and a covetous man is his own.''' 
Neither is it necessary to use any argument to demonstrate that 
Shakespeare possessed in an exceptional degree this faculty of " pack- 
ing thought close and rendering it portable." Take an example: 

Who steals my purse steals trash; 

' Twas mine, 'tis /lis, and has been slave to thousands. 

Here is an essay stated in two lines. And here we have another:. 

Let the end try the man.^ 
Again : 

Let proof speak.'' 
Again : 

Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing. •'> 

Take this instance: 

We defy augury; there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it 
be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet 
it will come; the readiness is all.'' 

It requires an analytical mind to follow the thought here 

through the closely-packed and compressed sentences. 

But the faculty is the saine in both. Taine says of Bacon: 

Shakespeare and the seers do not contain more vigorous or expressive con- 
densations of t/ipii,!;/i/, more resembling inspiration; and in Bacon they are to be 
found everywhere.'' 

1 Essays— Bacon, p. 285. ^ Troilus and Cressida, i, 2. 

2 Letter to the Lord Keeper, April 5, 1594. ^Hamlet, v, 2. 

^2d He7iry IV., ii, 2. 'History of English Literature, p. 154. 

•* Cymbcline, iii, i. 



.492 PARALLELISMS. 

VI. Thk Tendency jo Aphorisms. 

One of the most marked characteristics (jf both sets of writings 
is the tendency to rise from particulars to principles; to see in a 
mass of facts simply the foundation for a generalization; to indulge 
in aphorisms. 

Taine says of Bacon: 

On the whole, his process is not that of the creators: it is intuition, not reason- 
ing. When he has laid up his store of facts, the greatest possible, on some vast 
subject, on some entire province of the mind, on the whole anterior philosophy, 
on the general condition of the sciences, on the power and limits of human reason, 
he casts over all this a comprehensive view, as it were, a great net, brings up 
a universal idea, cojidoiscs his idea into a maxim, and hands it to us with the words, 
" Verify and profit by it." . . . Nothing more; no proof, no effort to convince: 
he affirms, and does nothing more; he has thought in the manner of artists and 
poets, and he speaks after the manner of prophets and seers. Cogitata et J'isa, 'this title 
of one of his books might be the title of all. The most admirable, the N'oviim 
Organii/ii, is a string of aphorisms — a collection, as it were, of scientific decrees, 
as of an oracle, who foresees the future and reveals the truth. And to make the 
resemblance complete he expresses them by poetical figures, by enigmatic abbrevi- 
ations, almost in Sibyllene verses. Idola spec/is, Idola- triiuh, Idola fori, Idola 
theatri ; every one will recall these strange names by which he signifies the four 
kinds of illusions to which man is subject.' 

The words which Taine applies to Bacon's Novum Orgamtm, "a 
string of aphorisms," might with equal appropriateness be used to 
describe the Shakespeare Plays. We can hardly quote from them 
an elevated passage which does not enunciate some' general princi- 
ple. Hence his utterances cling to the tongues of men like prov- 
erbs. He takes a mass of facts, as the chemist takes the crude 
bark of the Peruvian tree, and distills out of it, in the marvelous 
alembic of his mind, a concentrated essence, which, while it holds 
an infinitesimal relation to the quantity of the original substance, 
yet contains all its essential virtues. 

Let me give a few instances of this trait. Shakespeare says; 

His rash, fierce blaze of riot cannot last, 

(i) For violent fires soon burn out themselves; 

(2) Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; 

(3) He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes; 

(4) With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder; 

(5) Like vanity, insatiate cormorant, 
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. - 

One would scarcely believe that these five aphorisms, contained 
in seven lines, stood in this connected order in the play. It would 

' Tnincs //rs/ory f J" English Literature, p. 154. '^ Ixiiliani 11., \\, i. . 



IDENTITIES OF STYLE. 493 

naturally be thought that they had been selected from a wide 
range. The tendency to form generalizations might almost be 
called a disease of style in both writers. 

Shakespeare can hardly touch a particular fact without rising: 
from it to a principle. He says: 

Take up this mangled matter at the best; 
Men do their broken weapons rather use 
Than their bare hands.' 



Again 



(i) Our indiscretions sometimes serve us well, 
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us, 
(2) There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will.- 



Again : 
Again: 

Again: 



= 3 



They say best men are molded out of faults. 



(i) The evil that men do lives after them; 
(2) The good is oft interred with their bones. 



(1) Men's evil manners live in brass; (2) their virtues 
We wrilc in 7vatcr} 

This last sentence reminds one of Bacon's " but limns the K<atci 
and but writes in dust." 
And again: 

Thieves for their robbery have authority 
When judges steal themselves. 

We turn to Bacon, and we might fill pages with similar aphor- 
isms. Here are a few examples: 

Extreme self-lovers will set a man's house afire to roast their own eggs. 
The best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express. 

Riches are the baggage of virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, but 
they hinder the march. 

That envy is most malignant which is like Cain's, who envied his brother 
because his sacrifice was better accepted — when there was nobody but God to 
look on. 

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. 
This reminds US of Shakespeare's parallel thought: 
The better part of valor is discretion. 

I Othello, i, 3. ^ Measure for Measure, v, i. " Henry J'Ul^'w, 2» 

'^ Htmilet, V, 2. * Julius Ccesar, iii, •-'. 



And again Bacon says: 

Fortune is like a market, where, many times, if you stay a little, the price will 
fall. 

A faculty of wise interrogating is half a knowledge. 

Observe, too, how Bacon, like Shakespeare, always reasons by 
analogy — the great by the small, the mind by the body. He says, 
speaking of natural philosophy: 

Do not imagine that such inquiries question the immortality of the soul, or 
derogate from its sovereignty over the body. The infant in its mother's womb 
partakes of the accidents to its mother, but is separable in due season. 

What a thought is this ! The body carries the soul in it as the 
mother's womb carries the child; but the child is separable at birth 
and becomes a distinct entity — so does the soid at death. To care 
for the mother does not derogate from the child; justice to the 
conditions of the body, growing out of knowledge, cannot be 
injurious to the tenant of the body, or detract from its dignity. 

What a mind, that can thus pack comprehensive theories in a 
paragraph I 

V'll. The Tendency to Triple Forms. 

We find in Bacon a disposition, growing out of his sense of 
harmony, to run his sentences into triplicate forms, and we will 
observe the same characteristic in Shakespeare. 

Compare, for instance, the two following sentences. I mark 
the triplicate form by inserting numbers. 

Shakespeare says, in Maria's letter to Malvolio: 

(r) Some are born great, (2) some achieve greatness, and (3) some have great- 
ness thrust upon them.' 

Bacon says, in his essay Of Studies: 

(i) Some books are to be tasted, (2) others are to be swallowed, (3) and some 
few to be chewed and digested. 

Can any man doubt that these utterances came out of the same 
mind? There is the same condensation; the same packing of 
thought into close space; the same original and profound way of 
looking into things; and the same rhythmical balance into triplicate 
forms. 

But, lest the reader may think that I have selected two phrases 
accidentally alike, I give the sentences in which they are found. 

» Twelfth Night, ii, 5. 



IDENTITIES OF STYLE. ^^^ 

Maria says to Malvolio: 

Be not afraid of greatness, (i) Some are born great, (2) some achieve great- 
ness, and (3) some have greatness thrust upon them. . . . (i) Be opposite with a 
kinsman, surly with servants; (2) let thy tongue tang arguments of state; (3) put 
thyself into the trick of singularity. ... If not, let me see thee (i) a steward still, 
(2) the fellow of servants, and (3) not worthy to touch Fortune's fingers. 

And here is a larger extract from Bacon's essay Of Studies: 

Studies serve (i) for delight, (2) for ornament, and (3) for ability. . . . (i) To 
spend too much time in them is sloth; (2) to use them too much for ornament is 
affectation; (3) to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar. 
. . . (i) Crafty men contemn them, (2) simple men admire them, (3) and wise 
men use them. . . . (i) Read not to contradict and confute, (2) nor to believe and 
take for granted, (3) nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider, (i) 
Some books are to be tasted, (2) others to be swallowed, (3) and some few to be 
chewed and digested. . . . (i) Reading maketh a full man, (2) conference a ready 
man, (3) and writing an exact man. And therefore (i) if a man write little he had 
need to have a great memory; (2) if he confer little, he had need have a present 
wit; (3) and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that 
he doth not.' 

We find this triplicate form all through Bacon's writings. He 
says : 

He can disclose and bring forward, therefore, things which neither (i) the 
vicissitudes of nature, (2) nor the industry of experiment, (3) nor chance itself 
would ever have brought about, and which would forever have escaped man's 
thoughts.'- 

And again: 

What is (r) constant, (2) eternal and (3) universal in nature ? '' 

And again: 

Every interpretation of nature sets out from the senses, and leads by a (i) 
regular, {2) fixed and (3) well-established road.'* 

And again: 

Letters are good (i) when a man would draw an answer by letter back again; 
(2) or when it may serve for a man's justification afterward, or (3) where there may 
be danger to be interrupted or heard by pieces.'' 

And again: 

A (i) brief, (2) bare and (3) simple enumeration.'' 

And again: 

Nature is (i) often hidden, (2) sometimes overcome, (3) seldom extinguished.'' 

And again: 

The (i) crudities, (2) impurities and (3) leprosities of metals." 

' Essay (9/6'/«rt'/>i. ■• Ibid., book i. ''V^?,%3Ly Of Nature in Men. 

"^ Novum Organutn, book ii. 'Essay Of Negotiating. * Natural History, §326. 

^ Ibid. * Novum Organum, book i. 



496 



PARALLELISMS. 



And again: 

Whether it be (i) honor, or (2) riches, or (3) delight, or (i) glory, or (2) knowl- 
edge, or (3) anything else which they seek after.' 

And again: 

To (i) assail, (2) sap, and (3) work into the constancy of Sir Robert Clifford."^ 

We turn to Shakespeare, and we find the same tendency. How 

precisely in the style of Bacon's Essays are the disquisitions of 

Falstaff: 

Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on; how then? (i) Can honor 
set a leg? No. (2) Or an arm? No. (3) Or take away the grief of a wound? 
No. Honor has no skill in surgery, then? No. (i) What is honor? A word. 
(2) What is that word? Honor. (3) What is that honor? Air. A trim reckoning. 
Who hath it? He that died Wednesday, (i) Doth he feel it? No. (2) Doth he 
hear it ? No. (3) Is it insensible, then ? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live 
with the living? No. Detraction will not suffer it.^ 

And, speaking of the effect of good wine, Falstaff says: 

It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the (i) foolish, (2) and dull, (3) 
and crudy vapors which environ it: makes it (i) apprehensive, (2) quick, (3) for- 
getive; full of (i) nimble, (2) fiery and (3) delectable shapes. . . . The cold blood 
he did naturally inherit from his father, he hath, like (i) lean, (2) sterile and (3) bare 
land, (i) manured, (2) husbanded and (3) tilled.'* 

But this trait is not confined to the utterances of Falstaff. We 

find it all through the Plays. Take the following instances: 

For I have neither (i) wit, (2) nor words, (3) nor worth, 
(i) Action, (2) nor utterance, (3) nor the power of speech. 
To stir men's blood.'' 
Again: 

(i) Romans, (2) countrymen and (3) lovers. . . . (i) As C?esar loved me, I 
weep for him; (2) as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; (3) as he was valiant, I honor 
him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. . . . (i) Who is here so base that 
would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. (2) Who is here so 
rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I ofTended. (3) 
Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I 
offended. I pause for a reply. "^ 

Again: 

(i) Thou art most rich being poor; 
(2) Most choice, forsaken; (3) and most loved, despised." 
Again: 

Alas, poor Romeo ! he is already dead; (i) stabbed with a white wench's black 
eye; (2) shot through the ear with a love-song; (3) the very pin of his heart cleft 
with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft.^ 

' Wisdom o/the Ancients ' 1st Henry 11 '., v, i. • Ibid. 

— Dionysius. * 3d Henry, Il'./\x, ^. ''Lear,\,i. 

^History 0/ Henry I'll. ^Julius Cipsar, ill, .;. ^ Romeo tind Juliet, ii, 4. 



IDENTITIES OF STYLE. 497 



Again : 



Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 

(i) The courtier's, (2) soldier's, (3) scholar's (i) eye, (2) tongue, (3) sword. 

Again: 

1 am myself indifferent honest: but yet I could accuse me of such things, that 
it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very (i) proud, (2) revengeful, 
(3) ambitious; with more offenses at my beck than I have (i) thoughts to put them 
in, (2) imagination to give them shape, or (3) time to act them in.' 

Again: 

'Tis slander, 
(i) Whose edge is sharper than the sword; (2) whose tongue 
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; (3) whose breath 
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie 
All corners of the world: (i) kings, (2) queens and (3) states, 
(i) Maids, (2) matrons, nay, (3) the secrets of the grave. 
This viperous slander enters.'^ 

Again: 

This peace is nothing but (i) to rust iron, (2) increase tailors and (3) breed 
ballad-makers.^ 

Again: 

Live loathed and long, 
Most (i) smiling, (2) smooth, (3) detested parasites, 
(i) Courteous destroyers, (2) affable wolves, (3) meek bears, 
(i) You fools of fortune, (2) trencher fiends, (3) time's flies, 
(i) Cap-and-knee slaves, (2) vapors, and (3) minute jacks.'* 

Again: 

Must I needs forego 
(1) So good, (2) so noble and (3) so true a master. ^ 

And again : 

(i) Her father loved me; (2) oft invited me; 

(3) Still questioned me the story of my life, 

From year to year; the (i) battles, (2) sieges, {3) fortunes 

That I have passed.'' 

Again: 

It would be (i) argument for a week, (2) laughter for a month, and (3) a good 
jest forever.' 

Again: 

(i) Wooing, (2) wedding and (3) repenting are as (i) a Scotch jig, (2) a measure, 
and (3) a cinque pace: (i) the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full 
as fantastical; (2) the wedding mannerly, modest, as a measure full of state and 
ancientry; and (3) then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the 
cinque pace faster and faster, until he sinks into his grave.* 

• Hamkt, iii, i. ■• Titus Adronicus^ ii, 6. ^ 1st Henry /I'., ii, 2. 

2 Cymbeline, iii, 4. ^ Henry VHL, ii, 2. * Much Ado about Nothing, iii, i- 
^ Coriolanus, iv, 5. * Othello, i, 3. 



49'^ 



PARALLELISMS. 



Again: 



Again: 



Oh, that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder 

Upon these (i) paltry, (2) servile, (3) abject drudges.' 



Not only. Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all (i) accoutrement, 
(2) complement (3) and ceremony of it.'^ 



Again: 



How could (i) communities, 
(2) Degrees in schools and (3) brotherhood in cities, 
(i) Peaceful commerce from divided shores, 

(2) The primogeniture and due of birth, 

(3) Prerogative of age, (i) crowns, (2) scepters, (3) laurels. 
Rut by degree, stand in authentic place?-' 



Again: 



Hut (i) manhood is melted into courtesies, (2) valor into compliment, and (3) 
men are turned into tongues, and trim ones, too.'' 



Again: 
Again: 

Again: 

Again; 

Again : 
Again: 



For she is (i) lumpish, (2) heavy, (3) melancholy. - 

Say that upon the altar of her beauty 

You sacrifice (i) your tears, (2) your sighs, (3) your heart.* 

Had I power I should 
(i) Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, 
(2) Uproar the universal peace, (3) confound 
All unity on earth.'' 

To be directed 
As from her (i) lord, (2) her governor, (3) her king.'* 

To wound (i) thy lord, (2) thy king, (3) thy governor.* 



Is fit for (i) treasons, (2) stratagems and (3) spoils. "* 
I might continue these examples at much greater length, but I 
think I have given enough to prove that both Bacon and the writer 
of the Plays possessed, as a characteristic of style, a tendency to 
balance their sentences in triplicate forms. This trait grew out of 
the sense of harmony in the ear; it was an unconscious arrange- 
iTient of thoughts in obedience to a peculiar inward instinct, and it 
goes far to establish identity. 



' 3d Henry ?7., iv, 1. 

- Merry Wives 0/ Windsor, iv, 2. 

^ Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 

■• Much Ado about Nothing, iv, 1. 

'' T1U0 Gentlemen 0/ Verona, iii, 2. 



6 Ibid. 

' Macbeth, iv, 3. 
* Merchant 0/ Venice, iii, 2. 
' Taming of the Shreiv, v, 2. 
^'^ Merchant of I'enice, v, i. 



IDEXn riKS 01' STYLE. 4<,c> 

VIII. Catalogues ok Words. 

The man who thinks in concrete forms solidifies words into 
ideas. He who has trained himself to observe as a natural philoso- 
pher, builds in numerical order bases for his thought. He erects 
the poem on a foundation of facts. He collects materials before 
he builds. 

This trait is very marked in Bacon. He was the most observant 
of men. No point or fact escaped him. Hence he runs to the 
habit of stringing together catalogues of words. 

For instance, he says in IVic Expcriiiicntal History: 

There are doubtless in Europe many capable, free, sublimed, subtile, solid, 
constant wits. 

.\gain he speaks of 

Servile, blind, dull, vague and abrupt experiments.' 

Again he saj's: 

Let anti-masques not be long; they have been commonly of fools, satyrs, 
baboons, wild men, antics, beasts, spirits, witches, Ethiopes, pigmies, turquets, 
nymphs, rustics, cupids, statues moving, and the like.- 

Bacon also says: 

Such are gold in weight, iron in hardness, the whale in size, the dog in smell, 
the flame of gunpowder in rapid expansion, and others of like nature.* 

We turn to Lear, and we hear the same voice speaking of 

False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in 
greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.'* 

Again Shakespeare says: 

As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends.'' 

And here is another instance of the tendency to make catalogues 

of words: 

Beauty, wit. 
High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service, 
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all 
To envious and calumniating time.* 

Again we have, in the same play — the most philosophical of 

all the Plays — these lines: 

All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, 
Severals and generals of grace exact, 
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions, 
Excitements to the field, or speech for truce, 

' Great Instaiiration. '■' No7'!ii>t Organum, book ii. ^ Macbeth, v, 2. 

2 Essay Of Masks. ^ Lear, iii, 4. " Troilus and Cressida. iii, 3. 



500 PARALLELISMS. 

Success or loss, what is, or what is not, serves 
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.' 

And in the famous description of the horse, in I'cnus and Adonis. 
we see the same closely-observing eye of the naturaHst: 

Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long. 
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide. 

High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong. 
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide. 

Prof. Dowden says: 

This passage has been much admired; but is it poetry m a paragraph from an 
advertisement of a horse-sale ?'^ 

And here, in a more poetical passage, we observe the same ten- 
dency to the enumeration of facts: 

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind. 
So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung 
With ears that sweep away the morning dew; 
Crook-kneed and dew-lapped, like Thessalian bulls; 
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth-like bells. 
Each under each.-^ 

And in the same vein of close and accurate observation of 
details, "the contracting of the eye of the mind," as Bacon calls it, 
is the following description of a murdered man: 

But see, his face is black and full of blood; 

His eye-balls further out than when he lived. 

Staring full-ghastly like a strangled man; 

His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling; 

His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped 

And tugged for life, and was by strength subdued. 

Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking; 

His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged. 

Like to the summer's corn by tempests lodged.-* 

IX. The Euphonic Test. 

In Mr. Wilkes' book, Shakespeare from an Amcricaji Point of View, 
there is contained an essay (p. 430) by Professor J. W. Taverner, of 
New York, in which he attempts to show that Bacon could not 
have written the Shakespeare Plays, because of the Euphonic Test. 
And yet he says: 

Upon examination of the limited poetry which we have from the pen of Bacon.. 
1 find nothing to criticise. Like unto Shakespeare, he takes good note of anj^ 
deficiency of syllabic pulsation, and imparts the value of but one syllable to the 

' Troilus and Cressiiia, i, 3. 3 Midsummer A'ii;ht\i Dream, tv, ' . 

"^hak. Mind and Art, p. 45. "^ 2d Henry /'/., iii, 2. 



IDENTITIES OF STYLE. 501 

dissyllables Iieat'iii, -clearest, iiuiiiy,ivc>i, goeth; and lo glittering and chariot but the 
value of two, /precisely as Shake-spcarr would. 

But he tries to show tliat Bacon could not have written the 
Plays because it was his custom to run his sentences, as I have 
shown, into triplets. He says: 

Bacon, in this feature of the rhythmical adjustment of clauses, attaches to 
those sentences of his which are composed of triple clauses of equal dimensions, and 
which possess such regularity which he never seeks to disturb, etc. 

And he gives in addition to the instances I have quoted from 
Bacon the following, among others: 

A man cannot speak (i) to his son but as a father, (2) to his wife but as a hus- 
band, and (3) to his enemy but upon terms. 

Judges ought to be (1) more learned than witty, (2) more reverent than plausi- 
ble, and (3) more advised than confident. 

And he argues that Shakespeare 

Does not object to four or more clauses, but he does to three. 

And therefore Bacon did not write the Plays. Such arguments 
are fully answered by the pages of examples I have just given from 
the Shakespeare Plays, showing that the poet is even more prone 
to fall into the triple form of expression than Bacon — more prone, 
because there is more tendency to harmonious and balanced ex- 
pressions in poetry than in prose. 

But the Professor admits that there "is a kind of melody of 
speech that belongs to Bacon," and that his ear is exact, "and 
counts its seconds like the pendulum of a clock." 

In truth, if any man would take the pains to print the prose 
disquisitions and monologues of Shakespeare, intermixed with 
extracts from as nearly similar productions of Bacon as may be, 
the ordinary reader w^ould scarcely be able to tell which was which.. 

If such a reader was handed this passage, and asked to name 
the author, I think the probabilities are great that he would say it 
was from the pen of Francis Bacon: 

Novelty is only in request; and it is dangerous to be aged in any kind of 
course, as it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce truth 
enough alive to make societies secure, but security enough to make fellowship 
accursed: much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. 

We have here the same condensed, pithy sentences which mark 

the great philosopher, together with the same antithetical way of 

balancing thought against thought. 



502 PARALLELISMS. 

Yet this is from Shakespeare. It will be found in Measure for 
Measiire. ' 

And we can conceive that the following passage might have 

been written by Shakespeare — the very extravagance of hyperbole 

sounds like him: 

Contrary is it with hypocrites and impostors, tor llicy, in the church and before 
the people, set //leiti selves on Jiiv, and are carried, as it were, oiif of themselves, and, 
becoming as men inspired iviih holy furies, they set heaven and earth together.^ 

There is not a great stride from this to the poet's eye in a fine 
phrensy rolling from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth; and 
the madman seeing more devils than vast hell could hold. 

In short, the resemblance between the two bodies of compo- 
sitions is as close as could be reasonably expected, where one is 
almost exclusively prose, and the greatness of the other consists in 
the elevated flights of poetry. In the one case it is the lammer- 
geyer sitting among the stones; in the other it is the great bird 
balanced on majestic pinions in the blue vault of heaven, far above 
the mountain-top and the emulous shafts of man. 

'Act, iii, scene 2. "^Mectitatioiies Sacrir — Of Inif>ostors. 



^^^^^v! 



I BOOK II. 




mm 



THE DEMON5TRATiON 

'tome hither Jpirit, 
Jet CevUbdJi fic^ hix Comp^5Jl ion/ free: 
Untie the Jpell." 




^en '^tJ^^ ' c^ ^^/^y^^'^^^^'^^^"^ 



SoS' 



PART I. 



THE CIPHER IN THE PLAYS. 



CHAPTER I. 

//OIF I CAME TO LOOK FOR A CIPHER. 

I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver. 

Othello, /, J. 

I HAVE given, in the foregoing pages, something of the reason- 
ing — and yet but a little part of it — which led me up to the con- 
clusion that Francis Bacon was the author of the so-called Shake- 
speare Plays. 

But one consideration greatly troubled me, to-wit: Would the 
writer of such immortal works sever them from himself and cast 
them off forever ? 

All the world knows that the parental instinct attaches as 
strongly to the productions of the mind as to the productions of the 
body. An author glories in his books, even as much as he does 
in his children. The writer of the Plays realized this fact, for he 
speaks in one of the sonnets of *' these children of the brainy They 
were the offspring of the better part of him. 

But, it may be urged, he did not know the value of them. 

This is not the fact. He understood their merits better than all 
the men of his age; for. while they were complimenting him on " his 
facetious grace in writing," he foresaw that these compositions 
would endure while civilized humanity occupied the globe. The 
.sonnets show this. In sonnet cvii he says: 

My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes. 

Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme, 
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes : 
And thou in this shalt find thy monument, 
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. 

And in sonnet l.xxxi he savs: 



5o6 THE CJI'III:K l.\ THE FLA YS. 

The earth can yield me but a common grave, 
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. 
Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read; 
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse. 
When all the breathers of this world are dead; 
You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen), 
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. 

And in sonnet Iv he says: 

Not marble, not the gilded monuments 

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; 
But you shall shine more bright in these contents 

Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time. 

Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity. 

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room 
Even in the eyes of all posterity, 

That wear this world out to the ending doom. 
So, till the judgment that yourself arise. 
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. 

There was, as it seems to me, no doubt: i. That Bacon wrote 
the Plays; 2. That he loved them as the children of his brain; 3. 
That he estimated them at their full great value. 

The question then arose, How was it possible that he would dis- 
own them with no hope or purpose of ever reclaiming them ? How 
could he consent that the immortal honors which belonged to him- 
self should be heaped upon an unworthy impostor? How could he 
divest Bacon of this great world-outliving glory to give it to 
Shakspere ? 

This thought recurred to me constantly, and greatly perplexed 
me. 

One day 1 chanced to open a book, belonging to one of my chil- 
dren, called F.very £oy's Book, published in London, by George 
Routledge & Sons, 1868; a very complete and interesting work of 
its kind, containing over eight hundred pages. On page 674 I 
found a chapter devoted to "Cryptography," or cipher-writing, and 
in it I chanced upon this sentence: 

The most famous and complex cipher perhaps ever written was by Lord Bacon. 
It was arranged in the following manner: 

aaaaa stands for a. abaaa stands for i and j. baaaa stands for r. 

aaaab " " b. abaab " " k. baaab ", " s. 

aaaba " ' c. ababa " " 1. baaba " " t. 

aaabb •' " d. ababb " " m. baabb " ' u and v. 



J/OIV I CAME TO LOOK FOR A CIPHER. 507 

aabaa stands for e. abbaa stands for n. babaa stands for \v. 

aabab " " f. abbab " " o. babab " " x. 

aabba " " g. abbba " "p. . babba " " y. 

aabbb " " h. abbbb " " q. babbb " " z. 

Now suppose you want t(j inform some one that "All is well." I'irst place 
down the letters separately according to the above alphabet: 

, aaaaa ababa ababa abaaa baaab babaa aabaa ababa ababa 

Then take a sentence five times the length in letters of " All is well " — say it 
is, " We were sorry to have heard that you have been so unwell." 

Then fit this sentence to the cipher above, like this: 

aaaaaababaababaabaaabaaabbabaaaabaaababaababa 
we were so rr y/o//av cheard t hrt/yrmhavt'beewsounTC'e/l 

Marking with a dash every letter that comes under a /'. Then put the sen- 
tence down on your paper, printing all marked letters in italics and the others in 
the ordinary way, thus: 

We were jorry to Ii^mc hea;d \\\at y<'U havt- bee// S(' un7i'e/l. 
The person who receives the cipher puts it down and writes an a under ever\ 
letter except those in italics; these he puts a h under; he then divides the cipher 
obtained into periods of five letters, looks at his alphabet, and finds the meaning to 
be: "All is well." 

And on page 681 o'' the same chapter I found another alhision 

to Bacon: 

Most of the examples given will only enable one to decipher the most simple 
kind, such as are generally found in magazines, etc.; for if that intricate cipher of 
Lord Bacon's were put in a book for boys it would be a waste of paper, as we will 
venture to say that not one in a thousand would be able to find it out. 

Here was indeed a pregnant association of ideas: 

1. Lord Bacon wrote the Plays. 

2. Lord Bacon loved them; and could not desire to dissociate 

himself from them. 

3. Lord Bacon knew their inestimable greatness; and 

4. Lord Bacon dealt in ciphers; he invent(-<l ciphers, and 

ciphers of exquisite subtlety and cttnning. 
Then followed, like a flash, this thought: 

5. Could Lord Bacon Jiavc put a cipher i/i the Plays I 

The first thing to do was to see what Lord Bacon had said on 
the subject of ciphers. I remembered that Basil Montagu in his 
Life of Bacon had said, speaking of his youth and l^efore he came 

of age: 

After the appointment of Sir Amias Paulett's successor, Hacon traveled inio 
the French provinces and spent some time at Poictiers. He prepared a work upon 
ciphers, which he afterward published.' 

' Wofks of Lord Bai:cii^Vii\. i. 



5o8 THE CIPHER IM THE PI. A YS. 

I turned to the Dc Aiii^mcntis, and there I found what is practi- 
cally an essay on ciphers. The statement of Montagu is some- 
what of an error, for no separate essay was ever published by 
Bacon on that subject. 

Bacon says: 

As for writing, it is to be performed either by the common alphabet (which is 
used by everybody) or by a secret and private one, agreed upon by particular per- 
sons, which they call ciphers.' 

Now I had noted that, in his letters to Sir Tobie Matthew, he 
spoke of certain writings as the works of the alphabet. The reader 
will observe how often in this essay the word alphabet is used in 
connection with cipher-writing. In the sentence just quoted he 
tells us that writing may be performed in a secret and private 
alphabet ^'- wJiieh they eall ciphers'* Was the reverse true.? Could 
cipher-writings be called "works of the alphabet'' 1 There is some- 
thing very mysterious about these "works of his recreation " — these 
"works of the alphabet" — which no one was to be "allowed to 
copy." 

Bacon continues: 

Let us proceed, then, to ciphers. Of these there are many kinds : simple 
ciphers, ciphers mixed with non-significant characters, ciphers containing two differ- 
ent letters in one character, wheel ciphers, key ciphers, %vord ciphers, and the like. 
But the virtues required in them are three : that they be easy and not laborious to 
write; that they be safe and be impossible to be deciphered, and lastly, that they 
be, if possible, such as not to uiise suspicion. For if letters fall into the hands of 
those who have power either over the writers or over those to whom they are 
addressed, although the cipher itself may be safe and impossible to decipher, yet 
the matter comes under examination and question, unless the cipher be such as 
either to raise no suspicion or to elude inquiry. Now for this elusion of inquiry, 
there is a new and useful contrivance for it, which, as I have it by me, why should I set 
it down among the desiderata, instead of propounding the thing itself? It is this : 
Let a man have two alphabets, one of true letters, the other of non-significants; 
and let him infold in them two letters at once, one carrying the secret, the other 
such a letter as the writer would have been likely to send, and yet without anything 
-dangerous. Then if any one be strictly examined as to the cipher let him offer 
the alphabet of non-significants for the true letters, and the alphabet of true letters 
for the non-significants. Thus the examiner will fall upon the exterior letter, which 
finding probable, he will not suspect anything of another letter within. 

How subtle and cunning is all this ! Note the use of the word 
-alphabet. Note, too, the excuse that he gives for discussing the 
cipher: " he has it by him " — lest anyone might suppose he was 

* Works of Fi-ntu Is f!nniii, vol. ix, p. 715. 



IIOPV I CAME TO LOOK FOR A CIPHER. 



509 



furnishing a key to some other writings. Observe his rule, that 
the cipher "must not raise suspicion" as to its existence; it must 
h^'' infolded" in something else; so that the reader, falling upon 
the exterior writing, will not suspect another writing within. 
He continues: 

But for ai'oidiiii; suspicion altoi^ctlier, I will add another contrivance which 1 
devised myself when I was at Paris in my early youth, and which I still think 
worthy of preservation. For it has the perfection of a cipher, which is to make 
anything signify anything; subject, however, to this condition, that the infolding 
writing shall contain at least five times as many letters as the writing infolded : no 
other restriction or condition whatever is required. The way to do it is this : 
First let all the letters of the alphabet be resolved into transpositions of two 
letters only. For the transposition of two letters through five places will yield 
thirty-two differences, much more twenty-four, which is the number of letters in 
our alphabet. Here is an example of such an alphabet. 

Here follows the alphabet I have already quoted from the Every 
Boy's Book. 

He continues: 

Nor is it a slight thing which is thus by the way effected. For hence we = 
how thoughts may be communicated at any distance of place by means of ' 
objects perceptible either to the eye or ear, provided only that those obje' 
capable of two differences; as by bells, trumpets, torches, gun-shots, and 



riie. 



Herein he anticipated the telegraphic alphabet. 



But to proceed with our business : When you prepare to write, you must 
reduce the interior epistle to this biliteral alphabet. Let the interior epistle be — 

Fly. 
Example of reduction. 

FLY 
aabab ababa babba 

Have by you at the same time another alphabet in two forms — I mean one in 
which each of the letters of the common alphabet, both capital and small, is. 
exhibited in two different forms — any forms that you find convenient. 

E.xample of an alphabet in two forms: 



A 

A 


B 


A 


B 

a 


A 


B 

B 


A 

b 


B 


A 


B 


A 


B 


A 


a 


B 


b 


c 


c 


c 


D 


D 


d 


d 


E 


E 


e 


c 


F 


F 


f 


f 


G 


G 


g 


■ •> 


H 


H 


h 


h 


1 


I 


i 


i 


K 


K 


k 


k 


L 


L 


1 


I 


M 


M 


m 


in 


N 


N 


n 


n 














P 


P 


P 


P 


Q 


Q 


q 


'I 


R 


R 


r 


r 


S 


S 


s 


s 


T 


T 


t 


t 


U 


U 


u 


u 


V 


V 


v 


%■ 


W 


W 


w 


70 


X 

z 


X 

z 


X 

z 


X 


Y 


Y 


y 


y 



5IO . THE CIPHER IN TIJK J' L.I VS. 

Then take your interior epistle, reduced to the biliteral shape, antl adapt to it 
letter by letter your exterior epistle in the biform character; and then write it out. 
Lei the exterior epistle be: 

Do NOT GO TILL I COME. 

Example of adaptation. 

F L Y 

aa bab ab abab a bba 
Do not g(j till I come. 

I add another large example of the same cipher — of the writing of anything hy 
anything. 

The interior epistle, for which I have selected the Spartan dispatch, formerly 
sent in the Scvtalc : 

All is lost. A/iiidaius is killed. Ilie soldiers 7vant food. H'e <a/i neither get 
ketice nor stay longer here. 

The exterior epistle, taken from Cicero's first letter and containing the Spartan 
dispatch within it: 

In all duty or rather piety toivards you I satisfy cvetyhody exeept myself. Myself 
I never satisfy. Eor so great are the services which you have rendered me, that, seeing 
yon did not rest in your endeavors on ?Hy behalf till the thing was done, I feel as if mv 
life had lost all its stveetness, because I cannot do as much in this cause of you is. 
The occasions are these: Ammonius the king's ambassador openly besieges us with 
money, the business is carried on through the same creditors who were emf loved in it 
7vheti you were here, etc. 

I have here capitalized the words all and is, supposing them to 
be part of the sentence, "All is lost," but I am not sure that I am 
right in doing so. The sentence ends as above and leaves us in 
the dark. Bacon continues: 

This doctrine of ciphers carries along with it another doctrine which is its rela- 
tive. This is the doctrine of deciphering, or of detecting ciphers, though one be 
quite ignorant of the alphabet used or the private understanding between the 
parties : a thing requiring both labor and ingenuity, and dedicated, as the other 
likewise is, to the secrets of princes. By skillful precaution indeed it may be made 
useless; though, as things are, it is of very great use. For if good and safe 
ciphers were introduced, there are very many of them which altogether elude and 
exclude the decipherer, and yet are sufficiently convenient and ready to read 
and write. But such is the rawness and unskillfulness of secretaries and clerks in 
the courts of kings, that the greatest matters are commonly trusted to weak and 
futile ciphers. 

I said to myself: What is there unreasonable in the thought 
that this man, who dwelt with such interest upon the subject of 
ciphers, who had invented ciphers, even ciphers within ciphers — 
that this subtle and most laborious intellect might have injected a 
cipher narrative, an " interior epistle," into the Shakespeare Plays, 
in which he would assert his authorship of the same, and reclaim 
for all time those "children of his brain" who had been placed, for 
good and sufficient reasons, under the fosterage of another? 



HOW I CAME TO LOOK FOR A CU'llKR. 



5' 



I knew also that Bacon had all his life much to do with ciphers. 
Spedding says: 

In both France and Scotland Essex had correspondents, in his intercourse with 
whom Anthony Bacon appears to have served him in a capacity very like that of a 
modern under-secretary of stale, receiving all letters, ichich -au-ir niostlv in cipher, 
in the first instance, forwarding them (generally throutjh his brother Francis' 
hands) to the Earl deciphered, and accompanied with their joint suggestions.' 

But Bacon also referred again to the subject of ciphers in the 
second book of The Advancement of Learnini:;, where he briefly treats 
of the same theories. He says: 

The highest degree whereof is to write o/truia per omnia, which is undoubtedly 
possible, with a proportion c|uintuple at most of the writing infolding to the writing 
infolded, and no other restraint whatsoever. 

In his enumeration of the different kinds of ciphers," he names. 
as I have shown, "word ciphers." These are ciphers where the 
ic'ord is infolded in other words, and where the cipher is not one of 
representatives of the alphabetical signs. This seems to be the 
meaning of the example given of the Spartan dispatch, although, 
as I have said, he seems to leave the stibject purposely obscure. 

Speaking of Dr. Lopez' conspiracy to poison the Queen, Bacon 
refers to certain letters — 

Written in a cipher, 710I of alphabet, but of words, such as mought, if it were 
opened, impart no vehement suspicion.'' 

In the Second Book of The Advanccntcnf of Learning Bacon says: 

But there yet remains another use of Poesy Parabolical, opposite to the former, 
wherein it serves, as I said, for an infoldvient; for such things, I mean, the dignity 
whereof requires that they should be seen, as it inere, through a veil; that is, when 
the secrets and mysteries of religion, /(^//'cr and philosophy are involved in fables 
or parables.'' 

Note here the significant use of the word infoldnwnt. 
And in this connection I quote the following from the Valerius 
Ter/ninifs: 

That the discretion anciently observed, though by the precedent of many vain 
persons and deceivers abused, of publishing part and reserinng part to a private suc- 
cession, and publishing in such a manner whereby it may not be to the taste at 
capacity of all, but shall, as it were, single and adopt his reader, is not to be laid aside, 
both for the avoiding of abuse in the excluded, and the strengthening of affection 
in the admitted.^ 

' Spedding, Life and Works, vol. i, p. 250. ' Ll/e and U'orl-s, vol. i, p. 282. 

* Ad'c'ancement 0/ Learning,, vol. ix, p. 116. ■• De Auginentis, vol. viii, p. 442. 

* t^e Augwentis, chap. 18. 



512 



THE CIPHER IN THE P LA YS. 



And again: 

To ascend further by scale I do forbear, partly because it would draw (m the 
example to an over-great length, but chiefly because it would open that which /// 
this 'ivork I deiermine to reserved 

And again he says: 

And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for 
Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands, to mark up their lodgings, and 
not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peace- 
ably with chalk, to mark up those minds ivhich aiy capable to lodge and harbor it, than 
that which cometh with pugnacity and contention. 

And again he says, in the same work: 

Another diversity of method there is [he is speaking of the different methods of 
"tradition," /.<'., of communicating and transmittijig knowledge\, \\\{\Q.\\\\2iX\i ^ovnQ 
affinity with the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but dis- 
graced since by the imposture of many vain persons, who have made it as a false 
light ior their counterfeit merchandises; and that is, enigmatical and. disclosed. The 
pretense thereof [that is, of the enigmatical method] is to remove the vulgar capac-" 
ities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledge, and to reseri'e them to selected 
auditors, or ivits of stich sharpness as can fierce the veil. - 

And he also says in the Second Book of the Z>c Atigmefitis: 

Now, whether any mystic meaning be concealed beneath the fables of the 
ancient poets is a matter of some doubt. For my part, I am inclined to think a 
mysterj- is involved in no small number of them. 

Spedding says: 

The question is whether the reserve Bacon contemplated can be justly com- 
pared with that practiced by the alchemists and others, who concealed their discov- 
eries as " treasures of which the value would be decreased if others were allowed to 
share it." ... It is true that in both of these extracts Bacon intimates an intention 
to reserve the communication of one part of his philosophy — '' formula ipsa interpre- 
tationis ct inventa per eandcDi " — to certain fit and chosen persons. . . . The fruits 
which he anticipated from his philosophy were not only intended for the benefit of 
all mankind, but ice/v to be gathered in another generation.'^ 

Of course all this is expressed obscurely by Bacon, although no 
man was more capable of expressing it clearly, had he desired so to 
do. But, putting all these things together, I drew the inference 
that Bacon proposed to reserve some part of his teaching for another 
generation, for the benefit of mankind; that this was to be behind a 
veil, which keen wits might pierce; and he believed that the great 
writers of antiquity had, in like manner, buried certain mysteries in 
their works, the keys to which are now lost. 

' De Augiiroiiis, chap. 2. ' II Wis, Boston, vol. i, p. 185. ^ Ibid. 



IfOlV I CAME TO LOOK J-VN A CIPHER. 513 

And says Spedding: 

Thus I conceiv'C that six out <>f the ten passages under consideration must be 
set aside as not bearing at all upon the question at issue. Of the four that remain, 
two must be set aside in like manner, because, though they directly allude to the prac- 
tice of tmjisviitting knowledge as a secret from hand to hand, they contain no evidence 
that Bacon approved of it. 

And it is most remarkable that /// l/ie /icxt c/iapter after that in 
which we find the lengthy discourse about ciphers, already quoted, 
Bacon proceeds to discuss " the Handing on of tlie Lamp, or Method 
of Delivery to Posterity," and repeats himself again. He says there 
are two ways to transmit knowledge: 

For both methods agree in aiming to separate the vulgar among the auditors 
from the select; but then they are opposed in this, that the former makes use of a 
way of delivery more open than the common; the latter (of which I am now going 
to speak), of one more secret. Let the one, then, be distinguished as the Exoief'ic 
method, the other as the Acroamatic; a distinction observed by the ancients princi- 
pally in the publication of books, but which I transfer to the method of delivery. 
Indeed this acroamatic or enigmatical method was itself used among the ancients, 
and emploved with judgment and discretion. But in later times it has been dis- 
graced by many, who have made it a false and deceitful light to put forward their 
counterfeit merchandise. The intention of it, however, seems to be by obscurity of 
deliveiy to exclude the vulgar (that is the profane vulgar) from the secrets of knowl- 
edge, and to admit those onlv who have either received the interpretation of the 
enigmas through the hands of the teachers, or have wits of such sharpness and dis- 
cernment as can pierce the veil.' 

Is it not significant that immediately after the discussion of 
ciphers, in which he said that there were two kinds of writing, 
" either by the common alphabet or by a private and secret one," 
he should proceed to tell us that there are two ways of handing 
on the lamp to posterity, both of which exclude the vulgar, but one 
of them is more secret than the other, used formerly among the 
ancients [he has just given us an example in the Spartan Scxtale\ — 
an acroamatic or enigmatical method, the "veil" of whose 
" obscure delivery " can only be penetrated by those who have been 
let into the secret, or who have wits sharp enough to pierce it. 

Delia Bacon says of the Elizabethan period: 

It was a time when the cipher, in which one could write "omnia per omnia" 
was in request; when even "wheel ciphers" and doubles were thought not unwor- 
thy of philosophic notice . . . with philosophic secrets that opened down into the 
bottom of a tomb, that opened into the Tower, that opened on the scaffold and the 
block. - 

' De A ugmentis, book vi. '^ Philosophy of Shak. Plays I 'nfoldcd, p. 10. 



\ 



5 '4 THE CIPHEK JX Til K PLAYS. 

Ben Jonson, in his Epigrams, says, speaking of the young states- 
men of London: 

They all get Porta for the sundry ways 
To write in cipher, and the several keys 
To ope the character.' 

Porta was the famous NeapoHtan, Johannes Baptista Porta. He 

died in 1615. 

Says W. F. C. Wigston: 

It is difficult for us in this free age to understand all this. . . . For the neces- 
sity that arose for secrecy, and the intimacy of religion, politics and poetry cannot 
be fully grasped in an age where they have neither necessity nor interest to be in 
any way inter-related or inter-dependent.'^ 

And that Bacon expected that in the future lie would have an 

increase of fame or a justification of his life, seems to be intimated 

in the first draft of his will: 

I leave my memory to the next ages and foreign nations, and t.o 7ny oivn coun- 
trymen after some time be passed. 

And in the last copy of his will he changes this phraseology, and 

says: 

For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to for- 
eign nations, and to the next ages. 

Did he omit the words in italics because they might be too sig- 
nificant } 

He always looked over the heads of the generation in which he 

lived, and fastened his eyes upon posterity. He anticipated the 

great religious and political revolution which soon after his death 

swept over England. He believed that the world was on the eve of 

great civil convulsions, growing out of religious fanaticism, in 

which it was possible civilization might perish, despite the art of 

printing. He says: 

Nor is my resolution diminished by foreseeing the state of these times, a sort of 
declination and ruin of the learning which is now in use; for although I dread not 
the incursions of barbarians (unless, perhaps, the empire of Spain should strengthen 
itself, and oppress and debilitate others by arms, itself by the burden), yet from 
civil wars (which, on account of certain manners, not long ago introduced, seem to 
me about to visit many countries), and the malignity of sects, and from these com ■ 
pendiary artifices and cautions which have crept into the place of learning, no less 
a tempest seems to impend over letters and science. Nor can the shop of the 
typographer avail for these evils. ^ 

1 Epigram .\cii. The Keiv City. * A A'ev Story of SJiah,, p. 193. 

^ Oil the Interpretation 0/ Ncituvi-. 



IfOlV I CAME TO LOOK FOR A CIPHER. 515 

What more natural than that he, the cipher-maker, being the 
author of the Plays, should place in the Plays a cipher story, to be 
read when the tempest that was about to assail civilization had 
passed away, — the Plays surviving, for they were, he tells us, to 
live when " marble and the gilded monuments of princes " had 
perished — even to the general judgment. If he was right; if the 
Plays were indeed as imperishable as the verses of Homer, they 
must necessarily be the subject of close study by generations of 
critics and commentators; and sooner or later some one would 
" pierce the veil " and read the acroamatic and enigmatical story 
infolded in them. Then would he be justified to the world by that 
internal narrative, reflecting on kings, princes, prelates and peers, 
and not to be published in his own day; not to be uttered with- 
out serious penalties to his kinsfolk, his family, his very body in 
the grave. Then, when his corpse was dust, his blood extinct, or 
diluted to nothingness in the course of generations; then, when all 
vanities of rank and state and profession and family were obliter- 
ated; when his memory and name were as a sublimated spirit; then, 
*' in the next ages," "when some time had been passed," he would, 
through the cipher narrative, rise anew from the grave. 

So the life that died with shame 

Would live in death with glorious fame.' 

" His eye," says Montagu, ** pierced into futttre contingents." 
That can not be called improbable which has happened. If I 
had not fallen upon the cipher, some one else woidd. It was a mere 
question of time, with all time in which to answer it. 

And this material and practical view sets aside that other and 
profounder conception, in which the operations of the minds of men 
are btit the shadowings of an eternal purpose, and all history 
and ail nature but the cunningly adjusted parts of a great exter- 
nal spiritual design. 



CHAPTER IT. 

HOW I BECAME CERTAIN TJIKKK WAS A CIPHER. 

A book where men may read strange matters. 

IN the winter of 1878-9 1 said to myself: I will re-read the Shake- 
speare Plays, not, as heretofore, for the delight which they would 
give me, but with my eyes directed singly to discover whether there 
is or is not in them any indication of a cipher. 

And I reasoned thus: If there is a cipher in the Plays, it will 
probably be in the form of a brief statement, that " I, Francis 
Bacon, of St. Albans, son of Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the 
Great Seal of England, wrote these Plays, which go by the name of 
William Shakespeare." 

The things then to be on the look-out for, in my reading, were 
the words J^ra//r/s, Baron, Nicholas, Bacon, and such combinations 
of Shake and speare, or Shakes and peer, as w()uld make the word 
Shakespeare. 

I possessed no Concordance at the time, or I might have saved 
myself much unnecessary trouble. 

The first thing that struck me was the occurrence in The Merry 
Wives of Ulndsor^ of the word Bacon. The whole scene is an 
intrusion into the play. The play turns upon Sir John Falstaff's 
making love to two dames of Windsor at the same time, and the 
shames and humiliations he suffered therefrom. And this scene 
has nothing whatever to do with the plot of the play. Mistress 
Page, one of the Merry Wives, accompanied by her boy William, 
meets with Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson and schoolmaster, — 
old Dame Quickly being by; — and Mistress Page tells the school- 
master that her husband says the boy William " profits nothing at 
his book;" and she requests him to "ask him some questions in his 
accidence." In the first place, it is something of a surprise to find 
the wife of a jj^eoman, or man of the middle class, who is able to 

' Act iv, scene t. 

5 If' 



irOJr f BECAME CERTAEV THERE WAS A CIPHER. 517 

tell whether or not the boy correctly answers the Latin questions 
put to him. But what, jn the name of all that is reasonable, has 
the boy's proficiency in Latin to do with Sir John Falstaff's love- 
making ? And why take up a whole scene to introduce it? The 
boy ]Viniain nowhere appears in the play., except in that scene. He is 
called up from the depths of the author's consciousness, to recite a 
school lesson; and he is dismissed at the end of it into nothingness, 
never to appear again in this world. Is not this extraordinary? 

We have also the older form of the play, which is only half the 
size of the present, and there is no William in it, and no such scene. 
That first form was written to play, and it has everything in it of 
action and plot necessary to make it a successful stage play, and 
tradition tells us that it was successful. But what was this 
enlarged form of the play written for, if the old form answered all 
the purposes of a. play ? And why insert in it this useless scene ? 

Richard Grant White calls it "that very superfluous scene in 
The Merry Wives of Windsor.'' He acknowledges that "it has 
nothing whatever to do with the plot." ' 

Speaking of the contemporaries of Shakspere, Swinburne says: 

There is not one of them whom we can reasonably- imagine capable of the 
patience and self-respect which induced Shakespeare to re-write the triumphantly 
popular parts of Romeo, of Falstaff and of Hamlet, with an eye to the literary per- 
fection and performance of work, which, in its first outline, had won the crowning 
suffrage of immediate and spectacular applause.^ 

But while these reasons might possibly account for the re-writing 
of the parts of Romeo, Falstaff and Hamlet, there is no literary per- 
fection about The Merry Wives of Windsor to explain the doubling 
of it in size; thefe is very little blank verse in the comedy, and still 
less of anything that can aspire to be called poetry. Why, then, 
was it re-written? And why, when re-written, was this superfluous 
scene injected into it? That the reader may be the better able to 
judge of it, I quote the scene entire, just as it appears on pages 53 
and 54 of the Folio of 1623: 

Actus Quartus. Sc.^xa Prima. 

Enter AHstris Page, Quickly, JVilliam, Evans. 

Mist. Pag. Is he at M. Eords already think'st thou? 

Qiti . Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truely he is very couragious 
mad, about his throwing into the water. Mistris Tv^n;' desires you to come sodainely. 

' Genius p/~ S/iii/c, p. jS ;. - Thomas Middleton, S/iakea/rariaita. vol. iii, No. 26, p. 6t. 



2l8 THE CIPHER IN THE PIAYS. 



.1 



Mist. Fag, He be with her by and by : He but bring my yong-man here lo 
Schoole : looke where his Master comes; 'tis a playing day I see; how now Sir 
HugJi, no Schoole to-day? 

Eva. No : Master Slender is let the Boyes leave to play. 
Qui. 'Blessing of his heart. 

Mist. Pag. Sir Hugh, my husband sales my sonne profits nothing in the 
world at his Booke: I pray you aske him some questions in his Accidence. 
Ev. Come hither William; hold up your head; come. 

Mist. Pag. Come-on, Sirha; hold up your head; answere your Master; be 
not afraid. 

Eva. William, how many numbers is in Nownes ? . 
Will. Two. 

Qui. Truely, I thought there had bin one Number more, because they say 
od's-Nownes. 

Eva. Peace, your tatlings. What is (/(?/^() ]VilHaiii? 
Will. Pulcher. 

Q». Powlcats ? There are fairer things than Powlcats, sure. 
Eva. You are a very simplicity o'man : I pray you peace. What is (Lapis).. 
Willi at? I ? 

Will. A Stone. 

Eva. And what is a Stone ( William ?) 
Will. A Peeble. 

Eva. No, it is Lapis: I pray you remember in your praine. 
Will. Lapis. 

Eva. That is a good William: what is he ( William) that do's lend articles. 
//'///. Articles are borrowed of the Pronoune, and be thus declined. Singii- 
lariter nominativo hie, hac, hoc. 

E7<a. Nominativo h'ig, hag, hog: pray you marke: genitivo hititis. Well, 
what is your Accusative-case? 
Will. Aeciisativo hinc. 

Eva. I pray you have your remembrance (childe) Accitsativo hing, hang, hog. 
Qh. Hang-hog, is latten for Bacon, I warrant you. 

Eva. Leave your prables (o'man). What is the luicative ease ( William f) 
Will. O, Vocativo, O. 

Eva. Remember William, Focative, is caret. 
Qui. And that's a good roote. 
Eva. O'man, forbeare. 
Mist. Page. Peace. 

Eva. What is your Genitive ease plural t ( // illiam ?) 
Will. Genitive case? 
Eva. I. 

Will. Genitii'e horiim , hariim, hontm. 

Qu. 'Vengeance of Ginyes case; fie on her; never name her (childe) if she be- 
a whore. 

Eva. For shame o'man. 

Qti. You do ill to teach the childe such words; hee teaches him to hie, and to 

hac; which they'll do fast enough of themselves, and to call horiim ; fie upon you. 

Evans. O'man, art thou Lunatics ? Hast thou no understandings for thy 

Cases & the number of the Genders ? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures, as 

I would desires. 

Mi. Page. Pre'thee hold thy peace. 

Ev. Shew me now ( ]]■ illiam) some declensions of your Pronounes. 



HO IV I BECAME CERTAIN THERE WAS A CITHER. 519. 

Will. Forsoolh, I have forgot. 

/:';■. It is Qui, que, quod; if you forget your Quies, your Qiirs and your Quods 
you must be preeches : Go your waies and play, go. 

M. Tag. He is a better scholler then I thought he was. 

E7'. He is a good sprag-memory : Farewel 3fis. Tagr. 

Mis. Tage. Adieu good Sir Hugh : Get you home, boy, Come we stay loo 
long. I'.xcunt. 

I will ask the reader, after a while, to recur to this scene, and 
note the unusual, the extraordinary way in which the words are 
bracketed and hyphenated. 

It is very evident that there is nothing in this scene which has 
the slightest relation to the play of The Merry Wives. It is simply 
a schoolmaster, who speaks broken English, hearing a boy his 
lesson. There is no wit in the scene, and what attempts at wit 
there are seem to me very forced. 

It was written and inserted simply to enable the author to 
reiterate the name IVil/iaiii eleven times, and to bring in the 
word Bacon. The whole scene is built up, created, constructed 
and forced into the play to find an opportunity to use the word 
Bacon without arousing suspicion. 

" Hang-hog is the Latin for Bacon," says Dame Quickly, and we 
know just where the pun came from. I have already quoted the 
anecdote in a former chapter, but I repeat it here. It was inserted 
by the publisher of the third edition of the Rrsi/se/lafio. 1671, to- 
gether with fifteen other anecdotes: 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, being appointed a judge for the northern circuit, and 
having brought his trials that came before him to such a pass, as the passing of 
.sentence on malefactors, he was by one of the malefactors mightily importuned to- 
save his life; which, when nothing that he had said did avail, he at length desired 
his mercy on account of kindred. "Prithee," said my lord judge, "howcarr^ 
that in?" "Why, if it please you, my lord, your name is Bacon and mme is 
Hog, and in all ages Hog and Bacon have been so near kindred that they 
are not to be separated." "Ay; but," replied Judge Bacon, "you and I cannot 
be kindred except you be hanged; for Hog is not Bacon until it be well hanged." 

Here we have precisely the idea played upon by Dame Quickly. 
" Hang-hog is the Latin for Bacon," says the old woman. " Hog is 
not Bacon until it be well hanged," says Sir Nicholas. 

Here, then, we have not only a scene forced into the play, to 
introduce a jest with the word Bacon in it; but we find that 
jest connected with Sir Francis, because it related to an incident in 
the life of his father. 



520 THE CIPHER EV THE FEAYS. 

All this is most remarkable. But, having found William repeated 
eleven times, I asked myself, Where is the rest of the name, Shakes- 
peare, if there is really a cipher here, and the recurrence of William 
and the occurrence of Bacon are not accidents ? I soon found it. 

On the same page and column on which the scene I have just 
quoted terminates, page 54, in the next scene. Mistress Page, speak- 
ing of Ford's jealousy, says: 

Why, woman, your husband is in his olde lines againe: he so takes on yonder 
with my husband; so railes against all married mankinde; so curses all Eves 
daughters of what complexion soever; and so buffettes himself on the forehead, 
crying /iwr-out, /^'ivr-out, that any madnesse I ever yet beheld, etc. 

Here we have the last part of Shakespeare's name, and we will see 
hereafter that, in the cipher rule, the hyphenated words are, at times, 
counted as two separate words. It seemed to me very unnatural 
that any jealous man would beat \\\s forehead and tell // to peer out; 
or even tell his brain to peer out. Men usually employ their eyes for 
purposes of watchfulness. All that Ford needed was the evidence 
of his eyes to satisfy his jealousy. It was not a case of intellectual 
eyesight — of the brain peering into some complicated mental 
puzzle. It seemed to me, again, as if this was forced into the text. 

But where was the first part of Shakespeare's name? As the 
last syllable was, pee re, the first syllable — to give the full sound 
— would have to be shakes, and not shake. I found it on the next 
page but one, page 56, in the sentence which describes the ghost 
of Heme the hunter, in the Windsor forest: 

Mist. Pa^^e. There is an old tale goes that Heme, the 
Hunter (sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest), 
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, 
Walk round about an Oake, with great rag'd horns, 
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle. 
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain 
In a most hideous and dreadful manner. 

I turned to the original Merry Wives of Windsor, which I find 
published in Hazlitfs Shakespeare Library, " as it hath bene divers 
times acted by the right Honorable my Lord Chamberlaines ser- 
vants, both before her Maiestie, and elsewhere;" and I found the 
original of this passage in the following crude and brief form: 

Oft have you heard since Home, the hunter, dyed, 
That women, to affright their little children, 
Ses that he walks in shape of a great stagge. 



HOir I BECAME CERTAIN THERE WAS A CIPJ/ER. 5JI 

Here there is nothing of " shakes a chain." Neither is there any- 
thing of the " peere-out, peere-out," in the other sentence. The 
original is : 

Mrs. /\i,v. Mistress Ford, why, woman, your husband is in his old vaiue 
again, hee's coming to search for your sweet heart, but I am glad he is not here. 

Now as I had ]]'illiaiii Shakcs-pefrc and Bacon, I said to myself, 
Is there anything of Bacon's first name ? 

There is no Francis in the play; but we have Frank and 
Francisco. In act ii, scene i, Mistress Ford says to her husband: 

How now (sweet Ertuik), why art thou melancholy ? 

Everywhere else in the play he appears as Master Ford; as, for 
instance, his wife says: 

Mis. Ford. You use me well. Master Ford, do you ? 

Is it not singular that when a Frank was needed to complete the 
name, it should crop out in this unnecessary wav, once only and 
no more ? 

Again, the Host of the Tavern says, speaking of the duel between 
Dr. Cains and Sir Hugh Evans: 

To see thee fight, to see thee foigne, to see thee trav^erse, to see thee here, to see 
thee there, to see thee pass thy puncto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy 
montant. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha, bully ! what 
says my Esculapius ? etc. 

As there is no Francisco present or anywhere in the play, this is 
all rambling nonsense, and the word is dragged in for a purpose. 

In the same way I observed Fi-ancisco to make its appearance 
in the enlarged edition of Hamlet, while it did not occur in the orig- 
inal. In the copy of 1603, "as it hath been diverse times acted by 
His Highness' servants in the Cittie <jf London," the play opens 

thus: 

Enter Tic'-P Ccntinels. 

Their names are not given, and their speeches are marked i and 
2; but in the copy of 1604, " newly imprinted and enlarged to almost 
as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie," 
we find: 

• Enter BarnarJo and Francisco, tioo Centinels. 

And the scene opens thus: 

Bar. Whose there ? 

Fran. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourselfe. 

Bar. Long live the king. 



522 /'///; cj /'///■: A' /.\ /■///■; /•/..ivs. 

Frail. BarnarJo. 

Bar. Hee. 

Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour. 

Bar. 'Tis now struck twelve, get thee to bed, Francisco. 

And then Francisco disappears to his bed and never again reap- 
pears in the play, any more than William does in the Merry IVives^, 
after he has recited that interesting Latin lesson. Now why were the 
sentinels named at all ? There might be some excuse for giving: 
Barnardo a cognomen, as he continues in the scene to converse with 
Horatio and Marcellus. But what importance was a name to the man 
who was instantly swallowed up in oblivion and the bed-clothes? 

But it was in the first part of King Henry /F. that I found the 
most startling proofs of the existence of a cipher. 

In act ii, scene i, we have a stable scene, with the two " carriers '" 
and an hostler; it is night, or rather early morning — two o'clock — 
it is the morning of the Gadshill robbery; the carriers are feeding- 
their horses and getting ready for the day's journey; and in the dia- 
logue they speak as follows: 

1 Car. What Ostler, come away and be hanged; come away. 

2 Car. I have a gammon of Bacon, and two razes of Ginger, to be delivered 
as far as Charing-crosse. 

This occurs on page 53 of the Histories ; we have seen that the- 
other word Bacon occurs on page 53 of the Comedies. As these are 
the only instances in which the word Bacon occurs alone and not 
hyphenated with any other word, in all these voluminous plays, 
occupying nearly a thousand pages, is it not remarkable that both 
should be found on the same numbered page? 

We have the original of this robbery scene in another old play,, 
entitled T/ie Famous Victories of Henry tJie Fifth. In each case the 
men robbed were bearing money to the King's treasury; and in 
each case they called upon the Prince after the robbery for restitu- 
tion. In the old play, Dericke, the carrier, who is robbed by the 
Prince's man, says: 

Oh, maisters, stay there; nay, let's never belie the man; for he hath not beaten- 
and wounded me also, but he hath beaten and wounded my packe, and hath takers 
ttic great rase of Ginger that bouncing Bess . . . should have had. 

But there is no bacon in /lis pack. That was added, as in the 
other instances, when the play was re-written, doubled in size, and^ 
the cipher inserted. 



HO IV I BECAME CERTAIN THERE IV AS A CIPHER. 



523 



I said that Bacon, in making any claim to the authorship of the 
Plays, would probably seek to identify himself (as centuries might 
elapse before the discovery of the cipher) by giving the name of 
his father, the celebrated Sir Nicholas, Queen Elizabeth's Lord 
Keeper; and here, in the same scene, on page 53, appears his 
father's name. 

The chamberlain enters the stable; also Gadshill, " the setter" 
of the thieves, as Poins calls him; that is, the one who points the 
game for them. The chamberlain says: 

Cham. Good-morrow, Master Gads-Hill; it holds current that I told you yester- 
night. There's a Franklin in the wilde of Kent hath brought three hundred marks 
with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper; 
a kinde ot auditor, one that hath abundance of charge, too (God knows what); they 
are up already and call for egges and butter. They will away presently. 

Gad. Sirra, if they meete not with S. Nicholas Clarks, He give thee this necke. 

Cham. No; He none of it. I prithee, keep that for the hangman, for I know 
thou worship'st S. Nicholas as truly as a man of falshood may. 

First, I would observe the unnecessary presence of the word 
Kent. Why was the county from which the man came mentioned ? 
Because Kent was the birthplace of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and in any 
cipher narrative it was very natural to speak of Sir Nicholas Bacon 
born in Kent. 

But observe how Saint Nicholas is dragged in. He is repre- 
sented as the patron saint of thieves, when in fact he was nothing 
of the kind. Saint Anthony,"! believe, is entitled to that honor. But, 
ingenious as Bacon was, he could see no other way to get Nicholas 
into that stable scene, and into the talk of thieves and carriers, 
except by such an allusion as the foregoing; and he made it even 
at the violation of tlic saintly attributes. Saint Nicholas, Bishop 
of Myra, was born in Patara, Lycia, and died about 340. " He is 
invoked as the patron of sailors, merchants, travelers and captives, 
and the guardian of school-boys, girls and children." He is the 
original of the Santa-Klaus of the nursery. 

And in the same scene on the same coluinn we have. 

If I hang, old ^/r John hangs with mee. 

This gives us the knightly prefix to Nicholas Bacon's name. 
And it appeared to me there was something here about the 
Exchequer of the Commonwealth of England; for all these words, 
drop out in the same connection. Only a few lines below the word 



524 



THE CIPHER IN THE PLA YS. 



Nicholas, the word Coininoiiwealth is twice dragged in, in most 
absurd fashion. 

Describing the thieves, Gadshill says: 

And drink sooner than pray; and yet I lie, for they pray continually to their 
saint the Commonwealth ; or rather not pray to her but prey on her, for they ride 
up and down on her, and make her their Bootes. 

Cham. What, the CommomvcalHi their Bootes? Will she hold out water in 
— a foul way ? 

The complicated exigencies of the cipher compelled Bacon to 
talk nonsense. Who ever heard of a Saint Commonwealth ? And 
who ever heard of converting a saint into boots to keep out water? 

And on the next page we have the word exchequer twice 
repeated: 

I'aL I will not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy 
father's exchequer. 

Again: 

Bardolpli. Case ye, case ye; on with your vizards, there's money of the King 
coming down the hill, 'tis going to the King's exchequer. 

EaL You lie, you rogue, 'tis going to the King's tavern. 

And a little further on we have: 

When I am King of England.^ 

And as the Court of Exchequer was formerly a court of equity, 
in the same scene we find that word: " 

Eal. If the Prince and Poynes be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity 
stirring. 

Here again the language is forced; this is not a natural expres- 
sion. 

All this is in the second act of the play, and in the first act we 
have: 

As well as waiting in the court.'^ 

O, rare I'll be a brave Judge.^ 

For obtaining of suits.* 

And then we have Jiiastcr of Ihe grcal seal — 

Good-morrow, Master Gads-hill.* 

We'll but seal and then to horse. ^ 

For they have great charge.' 

lAct ii, scene 4. ' ist Henry II',, i, 2. ^ Ibid., i, 2. * Ibid., i, & 

^Ibid., ii, 1. "Ibid., iii, i. 'Ibid., li, i. 



I/O IF I BECAME CERTAIN riJERE WAS A CIPHER. 5^5 

All this is singular: Sir — Nicholas — Bacon — ('/ Kent — Master 
Qf the — o-rcat — seal of the Connnonwealth of England. 

And again: Judge oi \\\& court oi \\\^ exchequer — equity. 

It is true that this might all be the result of accident. But I go 

a step further. 

On the next page, 54, and in the next scene, T found the follow- 
ing extraordinary sentences: 

Enter Travtilers. 

Trav. Come Neighbor; the boy shall leade our Horses downe the hill: Wee'U 
walk a-foot awhile, and ease our legges. 

Thieves. Stay. 

Trav. lesu bless us. 

Falstaff. Strike: down with them, cut the villains throats; a whorson Caterpil- 
lars; Bacon-i&di knaves, they hate us, youth; downe with them, fleece them. 

Trav. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever. 

Falstaff. Hang ye gorbellied knaves, are you undone? No ye fat Chuffes, I 
would your store were here. On Bacons, on, what, ye knaves? Yong men 
must live, you are Grand lurers, are ye ? Wee'll iure ye i'faith. 

Heere they rob them and hinde them. 

Let us examine this. 

The word Bacon is an unusual word in literary work. It 
describes, in its commonly accepted sense, an humble article o? 
food. It occurs but four times in all these Plays of Shakespeare,. 

viz. : 

1. In The Merrv JVivcs of JJ'indsor, in the instance I have given, 
page 53 of the Comedies, " Hang-hog is the Latin for Bacon." 

2. In the ist Henry IV., act ii, scene i, " a gammon of Bacon," 
page 53 of the Histories. 

3. In these two instances last above given, on page 54 of the 

Histories. 

So that out of four instances in the Plays in which it is used 
this significant word is employed three times on two successive 
pages of the same play in the same act ! 

I undertake to say that the reader cannot find in any work of 
prose or poetry, not a biography of Bacon, in that age, or any 
subsequent age, where no reference was intended to be made to the 
man Bacon, another such collocation of Nicholas — Bacon — Bacon- 
fed— Bacons. I challenge the skeptical to undertake the task. 

And why does Falstaff stop in the full tide of robbery to partic- 
ularize the kind of food on which his victims feed? Who ever 



526 THE CIPHER IX THE PLAYS. 

heard, in all the annals of Newgate, of such superfluous and absurd 
abuse? Robbery is a work for hands, not tongues. And it is out 
of all nature that F"alstaff, committing a crime the penalty of 
which was death, should stop to think of bacon, or greens, (^r beef- 
steak, or anything else of the kind. 

\i it intended as a term of reproach? No; the bacon-fed man 
in that day was the well-fed man. I quote again from the famous 
Victories of Henry V. 

John, the cobbler, and Dericke, the carrier, converse; Dericke 
proposes to go and live with the cobbler. He says: 

I am none of these great slouching fellows that de\ouro these great pieces of 
heefe and brevves; alas, a trifle serves me, a woodcccke, a chicken, or a capons 
legge, or any such little thing serves me. 

Jolui. A capon ! Why, man, I cannot get a capon once a yeare, except it be 
at Christmas, at some other man's house, for we cobblers be glad of a dish of rootes. 

Falstaff might fling a term of reproach at his victims, but 
scarcely a term of compliment. 

But Falstaff calls the travelers Bacons ! Think of it. If he had 
called them hoi^s., I could understand it, but to call them by the 
name of a piece of smoked meat I I can imagine a man calling 
another a bull, an ox, a beef; but never a tenderloin. Moreover, 
why should Falstaff say, "On, Bacons, on !" unless he was chasing 
the travelers away? But he was trying to detain them, to hold on 
to them, for the stage direction says: "Here they rob them and 
bindc t lie in. " 

When I read that phrase, "On, Bacons, on ! " I said to myself: 
Beyond question there is a cipher in this play. 

And on the same page, in the same scene, I found: 

Falstaff. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good King's sonne. 

Here the last words were unnecessary — Falstaff's request was 
complete without it. But suppose it followed the word Bacons in 
the cipher — then we would have Sir Nicholas Bacon s son. 

And on page 55, the next page of the Folio, I found the fol- 
lowing : 

SC.KNA Ol'AKTA. 

Knicr PriiKf and Poines. 

Prin. Ned, prithee come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh 
a little. 

Poines. Where hast been. Hall ' 



//0;r / BECAME CERTAEX THERE WAS A CIPHER. 527 

Prill. With three or four logger-heads, amongst three or four score Ilogs- 
"lieads. I have sounded the very base string of humility. Sirra, I am sworn, 
brother, to a leash of Drawers, and can call them by their names, as Tom, Dicke 
and Francis. 

Why Tom, Dick and Francis^ The common expression, here 
iilluded to, is, as every one knows, " Tom, Dick and Harry." Why 
was Harry thrown out and Francis substituted ? Why ? Because 
the cipher required it; because it gives us: 

F'rnihis — Bacon — Nicholas — Bacoiis — so line. 

But this isn't all. On the next page, 56, we have a ccjntinuation 
«f this conversation between the Prince and Poins; and in it this 
occurs (I print it precisely as it stands in the Folio): 

Prince. . . . Hut Xcd, to drive away time till Fals/affr come, I prythee do thou 
•^tand in some by-roome, while I question my puny Drawer, to what end he gave 
Tjne the Sugar, and do never leave calling Eriiiicis, that his tale to mu may be 
nothing but. Anon: step aside and He shew thee a President. 

Poincs. Francis. 

Prince. Thou art perfect. 

Pflin. Erancis. 

Enter Drawer. 

Fran. Anon, anon, sir; look down into the Ponigarnet, Ralfe. 

Prince. Come hither Erancis. 

Fran. My Lord. 

Frin. How long hast thou to serve, P'rancis ? 

Fran. Forsooth five years, and as much as to 

Poin. Francis. 

Fran. Anon, anon sir. 

Prin. Five years. Berlady, a long Lease for the clinking of F'ewter. But 
Francis, darest thou be so valiant, as to play the coward with thy Indenture, & 
shew it a faire paire of heeles, and run from it ? 

F'ra/t. O Lord sir. He be sworne upon all the Books in England, I could find 
in my heart. 

Poin. Francis. 

Fran. Anon, anon sir. 

Prin. How old art thou, Erancis ■' 

Fran. Let me see, about Michaelmas next I shalbe 

Poin. Francis. 

Fran. Anon sir; pray you stay a little, my Lord. 

Prin. Nay, but harke you Francis, for the sugar thou gav'st me, 'twas a peny- 
'svorth, was't not? 

Fran. O Lord sir, I wish it had bene two. 

Prin. I will give thee for it a thousand pound ; Aske me when thou wilt, and 
ahou shalt have it. 

Poin. Francis. 

I-'ran. Anon, anon. 

Prin. Anon Francis? No Francis, but to-morrow Francis; or Francis, on 
ihursday: or indeed Francis when thou wilt. But Francis. 

Fran. My Lord. 



528 THE CIPHER IN THE PLAYS. 

Priu. Wilt thou rob this Leatherne lerkin, Christall button, Not-pated, Agal 
ring, Puke stocking, Caddice garter, Smooth tongue, Spanish pouch. 

Fran. O Lord sir, who do you meane? 

Prin. Why then your browne Bastard is your onely drinke : for looke you, 
Francis, your white Canvas doublet will sulley. In Barbary sir, it cannot come to 
so much. 

Fran. What sir? 

Poin. Francis. 

Prin. Away you Rogue. Dost thou heare them call ? 

What was the purpose of this nonsensical scene, which, as some 
one has said, is about on a par with the wit of a negro-minstrel 
show ? What had it to do with the plot of the play ? Nothing. 

But it enabled the a:uthor to bring in the name of Francis 
twenty times in less than a column. And observe how curiously 
the words Francis are printed: five times it is given in italics 
and fifteen times in Roman type. 

And are not these twenty Francises on page 56 of the Histories, 
and the Shakes on page 56 of the Comedies, and the peere on page 
54 of the Comedies, and the Bacon-fed and Bacons on page 54 of the 
Histories, and the Bacon on page 53 of the Comedies, and the Nicho- 
las and Bacon on page 53 of the Histories, and the William eleven 
times repeated on page 53 of the Comedies, all linked together, and 
simply so many extended fingers pointing the attention of the 
sleepy-eyed world to the fact that there is something more here 
than appears on the surface ? These are the indices, the exclamation 
points, that Bacon believed would, sooner or later, fall under the 
attention of some reader of the plays. 

But go a step farther. On page 67 of the same play in which 
all this Nicholas-Baco)i-Francis-Bacon-Bacons is found, we find the 
name of Bacon's country-seat, St. Albans. 

No point of the earth's surface was more closely identified with 
Francis Bacon than St. Albans. It was his father's home, his moth- 
er's residence; the place where he spent his leisure, where probably 
he produced many of these very plays; the place from which he 
took his knightly title. Viscount St. Albans, when he rose to great- 
ness. I have shown how the name is peppered all over several of 
the plays, while there is no mention of Stratford-on-Avon from 
cover to cover of the volume. On page 67 we have Falstaff's cele- 
brated description of his ragged company. It concludes as fol- 
lows: 



HOW I BECAME CERTAIN THERE WAS A CIPHER. 529 

There's not a Shirt and a halfe in all my company, and the halfe Shirt is two 
Napkins tackt together, and throwne over the shoulders like a Heralds coat, without 
sleeves: and the Shirt, to say the truth, stolne from my host of S. Alboncs, or the 
Red-Nose Inne-keeper of Davintry. But that's all one, they'le finde Linnen 
enough on every Hedge. 

This might pass well enough so long as one's suspicions were not 
aroused as to the existence of a cipher. But the critical would then 
ask, Whv St. Alhans ? There were hundreds of little villages in 
England of equal magnitude. Why should the man of Stratford, 
who is supposed to have had no more connection with St. Albans 
than he had with Harrow, Barnet, Chesham, Watford, Hatfield, 
Amersham, Stevenage, or any other of the villages near St. Albans, 
why shoidd he select the residence of Francis Bacon as the scene of 
the theft of the shirt ? 

But in 2d Henry IV., act ii, scene 2, page 81 of the Folio, we find 
St. Albans again, under equally suspicious circumstances. Prince 
Hal asks Bardolph, Falstaff's servant, where his master sups, and 
vhat company he has. 

Frill. Sup any women with him ? 

Page. None my Lord, but old Mistris Quickly and M. Doll Teare-sheet. 

Prin. What Pagan may that be ? 

Page. A proper Gentlewoman, Sir, and a Kinswoman of my Masters. 

Here we are asked to believe that Prince Hal, the constant com- 
panion of Falstaff (for Falstaff and his men are called his "contin- 
ual followers"), did not even know the name of the woman who 
held the relations to Falstaff which Doll Tearsheet sustained. But 
we will see that this surprising ignorance was necessary for the 
question he was about to ask : 

Prin. . . . This Doll Teare-sheet should be some Rode ? 

Poins. I warrant you, as common as the way betweene .S". Alhans and London.' 

We can see the process of construction going on before our very 
eyes, and leading up to that word St. Albans: just as we saw the 
school-boy's lesson in T/ie Merry Wives culminating in the word 
Bacon. 

The prince asks where Falstaff sups — who is with him? Doll 
Teare-sheet. Who is she ? She must be some road — 'some com- 
mon path? Yes; as common as the way between St. Albans and 
London. 

^ 2d Henry /v., ii\2. 



530 THE CIPHER ix the pla vs. 

Why St. Albans ? ■ All roads in England lead to London. Why 
not the road to York 1 (Jr to Stratford ? Or to Warwick ? Or to 
Coventry? Or to Kenihvorth ? Why, out of all the multitude of 
towns and cities of all sizes and degrees in Kngland, does the writer 
again pick out the residence of the man who was Francis — Bacon 
— Nicholas — Bac(>n's — sonnr, — and whose name so mysteriously 
appears on pages 53, 54 and 56 of the Comedies and Histories ? 

There was another Sjiot in England with which Francis Bacon 
was closely identified — Gray's Inn, London. Here he received his 
law education; here he was lecturer, or '' dcnible-reader ,•" here he 
gave costly entertainments, masques and plays to the court; here he 
built his famous lodge; here he retired in his old age. And this 
word, too- — a few pages from the Sf. Albans I have just quoted — 
appears in the play. Speaking to his cousin Silence about Sir John 
Falstaff, Robert Shallow, justice of the peace, says: 

Shal. The same Sir John, the very same. I saw him break Scoggan's head 
at the Court-gate, when he was a crack not this high; and the very same day did I 
fight with one Sampson Stock-fish, a Fruiterer, behinde Greyes-Inn} 

As Shallow and his light, and Samj^son Stock-fish the fruiterer, 
and the whole play, were the work of the imagination and never 
had any real existence, why locate the battle, which has nothing 
to do with the plav, or with Falstaff, or with anything else, 
behind Francis Bacons law scliool ?' What had the man of 
Stratford to do with Gray's Inn, that he should thus drag it into 
his play, neck and heels, when there was not the slightest necessity 
for it ? 

And then again, right in this same scene, and a few lines prior to 
the words I have just qiu)ted, I found another mysterious William 
who bobs up into the text of the play without the least particle of 
connection with the plot, and then settles down again forever under 
the waters of time, just as the boy William di<l in TIic Merry Wives. 

Silence and Shallow are cousins; Silence is in commission with 
Shallow as justice of the peace. The scene opens with a conver- 
sation bet-^veen them. 

Shallow. By yea and nay, Sir, I dare say my cousin IVilliam is become a 
good Scholler; he is at Oxford still, is he not? 
Silcntc. Indeed, sir, to my cost. 

'^ zd Henry II'., iii, - . 



//()//' / BECAME CKREAEX TIIKKE WAS A CIPHER. 531 

What has this gt)t to do with the play ? Why should Siiallow 
be so ignorant of the wliereabouts of Ids cotisiii ? Are there any 
other plays in tlie world where characters appear for an instant and 
disappear in this extraordinary fashion, saying nothing and doing 
nothing: but remaining, like Chevy Slyme, in Martin Chuzzleunt, 
perpetually out of sight around a corner? 

I5ut there are a great many other Williams that thus tioat for an 
instant before our eyes and vanish. In act v, scene \ of this same 
2d Jfciiry //'., we have three in the space of half a column. .Shal- 
low is talking to his man-of-all-work, Davy : 

SlialU>-,<. Uavy, Davy, Davy, let mu see (Davy), let me see; iri/Iiaiii Cooke, 
bid him come hither. . . . 

J)iirv. And as^aiii, sir, shall we sowe the head-land with Wheate? 

Shallow. With red W'heale Davy. l^>ut for \\"i!li,!ui Cookt- . are there no vounjr 
Pi.sjeons? 

D.jvy. Yes Sir. 

William the Cook does not "come hithei." And a little further 
on Shallow again refers to hini. 

Slialknv. Some pigeons Davy, a couple ot shorl-legged Heiines: a ioynt of 
Mutton, and any pretty little tine Kickshawes, tell ll'illiain Cooke. 

And so William Cook goes off the scene into oblivion. 
And then there is another William 

Da-,'}'. Sir, a new link to the bucket must need, be had. And, sir, do you 
mean to stop any of Williaiu' s wages, about the sack he lost the other day at 
Hinckley Fair? 

And Still a third William flashes upon us for an instant, like a 
dissolving view. * 

Davy. I beseech you, sir, to countenance ll'illiam X'isor, of Woiicot, against 
Clement Perkes of the hili. . 

Hut X'isor, like the rest, disappears in vacuum. 

And in As You Like //' another William comes in, to go off 
again. He has no necessary coherence with the ])lay; the plot 
woidd proceed without liim. He proposes to miirry Audrev, but 
the clown scares him off, and, after having fretted hi<; brief five 
minutes on the stage, he wishes the clown "(rod rest you, merry 
sir 1 " and steps out into the darkness. He is a temporary fool, and 
he answers no ])urpose save to bring in the word W'illiani. 

' .Act \-. scene 1 . 



532 THE cirjii-.R jy THE pla vs. 

Win. Good even Audrey. 
.///(/. God ye good Even IVi/liiti/i. 
C/o-tC'it. Is thy name William^ 
IVill. William, sir. 

Clown. A fair name. Wast borne i' ih Forrest here? 
Mill. I, sir, I thank Ciod. 

I found also that the combinations, S/urkc and spfare, or sphere... 
or Shakes and/^r/-, or spiii\ or spare, occur in all the plays. The word 
Shake or Shakes is foi/iul in every play in the Folio, ami in Pericles, whielt 
7C'as not printed in the Folio. 

In many cases the word Shake or Shakes is evidently forced into 
the text. 

In A IPs Well that Fnds Well we have: 

Cloioii. Marry you are the wiser man: for many a man's tongue shakes out his 
masti-r's undoing.' 



Again: 
Again : 

Again: 
Again: 



But I must shakr fair weather. - 

And like the tyrannous breathing nf the north 
Shakes all our buds from growing.;' 

First, Marcus Brutus, will I shakr with you.^ 

Servaiil. If you did wear a beard upon your chin 
I'd s/iake it in this quarrel. 



And, again, the voluble old nurse in Romeo and Juliet refers to» 
an earthquake that occurred when she was weaning Juliet: 

When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple 
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool! 
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug. 
Shake, quoth the dove-house.'' 

And observe how singularly, in such a master of rhythm and 
language, the word shake is forced into this speech of Hamlet,., 
when he is swearing Horatio and Marcellus: 

As I, perchance, hereafter may think meet 

To put an antic disposition on — ■ 

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall 

With arms encumber'd thus, or thus head shake, 

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, etc." 

' Act ii, scene 4. ^ Cymhelhie, i, 4. '' Koiiitv nmi Jitliif, i, 3. 

^ Jti Hcityy \'l.,\,x. "^ Julius C(esar,\\\, \. '• ! Ir.iiild .\, =,. 



J/OIV J BECAME CERTAIN THERE WAS A CIPHER. 533 

In the 2 J Heuiy IV., when the swaggering Pistol is below 
,and asks to come up, Dame Quickly protests against it, but Falstaff 
reassures her, that he is not a swaggerer, but a cheater : 

Cheater call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater; 
but I do not love swaggering. I am the worse when one says, swagger : Feele 
masters how I s/iakc. 

And this is the same Dame Quickly who, a little before, in the 
•same play, threatens to throw the ponderous Falstaff into the 
channel, and who "cares nothing for his thrust" if she "can but 
close with him! " Any one can see that her act, in turning to Fal- 
staff and the servant, and asking them to "feel how she shakes," is 
forced and unreasonable. 

Clifford says to Cade's followers: 

Who loves the king, and will embrace his pardon, 
Fling up his cap and say — God save his majesty I 
Who hatcth him, and honors not his father, 
Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake, 
S/iakf he his weapon at us, and pass by.' 

Is not this a forced and unnatural expression ? Would it not 
have been sufficient to have taken the affirmative vote on the ques- 
tion, or, if he put the negative, to have required some more natural 
sign ? 

And again, lago says of poor Cassio, after he has made him 

drunk: 

I fear the trust Othello puts in him, 
On' some odd time of his infirmity. 
Will sn.ikc' this island.'^. 

And when we turn to the last syllable of Shakespeare's name we 
find evidence that it too is forced into the text. 

In isf Henry / V.;' facing that page 53 which we liave found so 
pregnant, these lines stand out as if in connection with the J^acon 
and the Nicholas Bacon opposite them: 

War. Peace, cousin, say no more. 
And now / 7vill iDiclasp a secret book. 
And to your ijiiiek conceiving discontents 
ril read you matter, deep and dangerous. 
As full of peril and adventurous spirit 
As to o'er-walk a current, roaring loud 
On the unsteadfast footing of a Speare. 

3 _',/ rfcnrv /■/., iv, 8. ^ Othello, ii, 3. ^ Art i, scene 3, on page 52. 



Oo4 



J] IK CirJIER LX rilE PLAYS. 



As a spear did not usually exceed ten feet in length, we are 
forced tt) ask ourselves, What kind of a stream could that have been 
which it was used to bridge ? One coidd more readily leap it by the 
aid of the spear, than cross on such a frail and bending structure. 

Again, after F'alstaff has been exposed by Prince Hal and 
Poins, in his prodigious lying about the battle which he pretended 
to have fought, to retain the plunder they had taken from the trav- 
elers, his knavish followers, Peto and Bardolph, as soon as his back 
was turned, proceed to testify against him; 

Prill. Tell me now in earnest how came Falstaff' s sword so hacked ? 

Pclo. Why he hacked it with his dagger; and said he would swear truth out of 
England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to 
do the like. 

Hard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with .^/ivcr-grass, to make them bleed, and 
then to beslobber our garments with it. 

This is ingenious; btit would not blades of grass have done as 
well without particularizing the species of grass ? 

Again, in 2d Hoiry VI., York says, speaking to the King, of 
himself and the crown: 

That gold must round engirt these brows of mine; 
Whose smile and power, like to Achilles' spear. 
Is able with the change to kill and cure.' 

This comparison of a man to a spear, and a medicinal spear at 
that, is not natural. 

I had observed that the word bcaco)i in that day was pro- 
nounced the same as bacon. This is shown in an anagram tpioted 
by Judge Holmes, from a volume of poems of the same Sir John 
Davies to whom Bacon wrote the letter alread)^ quoted, in which he 
referred to himself as a concealed poet: 

To the Right Honorable Sir Francis Racon, Knight. I,(>rd High Chancellor of 

England : 

. m ' Beacone 

Anagr"" - 

' Beacon 
Thy virtuous Name and Office joyne with Fate, 
To mtike thee the bright Beacon of the state. 

In fact, it is well known that the English of Shakespeare's day 

was spoken as the peasants of Ireland now speak that tongue. 

Elizabeth's court were delighted to hear that 

A l>a.<;tc without discoorsc of ray son 
Would have monicd longer. 

' .Alt V, sroni' i. 



J/Olt' I BECAMl-:. C1:R'JAL\ TnJ:RI: 11. IS A CIPIIER. 5:15 

The Irish obtained the Enghsli t.ony;uc jusl as the aristocracy of 
that age spoke it, and, with the conservatisni of a province, retained 
it unchanged, and so it happens that the despised broi^tic of tlie 
sister island rei)resents today, like a living fossil, the classic speech 
of Engfend's greatest era. 

The spelling of the Folio of 1623 gives us the proiuinciation of 
a great many words. I note a few. 

Ugly is spelled oiigly:'^ Jioard is spelled Iiooi d , - rcticat is spelled 
rcti-ait;' ^A'r^/v/ is spelled ahoord;^ iiiiirdcicr is spelled //nirf/icrcr ; ' 
Si'co/id is spelled siicond ;'' earth is spelled carfr;'' grant is spelled 
grai/iit." 

As a rule the c had the a sound; thus beacon became bacon; and 
even beckon had the same sound, and both were used in the cipher 
as the equivalent for Bacon. Hence I think the words in Hamlet — • 

It hccliotis you to go away with it''' — 

are the sequel to Francisco. 

And again: 

lago hcckojis me.'" 

In Trail us and Cressida we have;: 

The wound of peace is surety, 
Surety secure; Imt modest doubt is called 
The bciuon of the wise, the tent that searches 
To the bottom of the worst." 

This is very forced. Modest doubt becomes a blazing signal fire, 
and this again becomes a probe to search a wound! And this in a 
master of expression, who never lacked words to set forth his real 
meaning. 

In I.ear^ Kent speaks of the sun as 

The lu-aroii to this imder globe. 

The commentators could not understand that the part of the 
earth on which the sun shone coidd be "the under globe;" and so 
they inserted in the margin: " looking up to the inoon^ The neces- 
sities of the cipher constrained the sentence. 

In a great many instances the word Baco/i seems to have been 
made by combining Bay with con, 01 can, wliich in that day was pro- 

'^ 2d Ilcnry IV., iv, t. "Jbjd.^ jy^ i_ ^Mbid., iii, 2. 

* Tcntpest, i, i. ^ Richard II., v, 6. '• 1st Tfcn7-y IF., v, 2. 

' Ibid. f" Ibid., V. 5. ^Hainlet, i, 3. 

^"Oihel/o, iv, 1. " '/'>(>//us ttitd Cti-jis/da, ii, 3. 



53 



6 THE CIPHER IN THE PLA YS. 



nounced with the broad sound like coii^ as it is even yet in England 
and parts of America. 

In such a desperate bay of death.' 

The other day a bay courser.''^ 

To ride on a bay trotting horse.-' 

I'd give bay curtail.* 

He seems to have been fond of the bay color in a horse. 

Why, it hath bay windows.* 

The (^rty-trees all are withered.* 

Brutus, bay me not.'' 

And then we have: 

Ba, pueritia, with horn added. Ba.^ 
Proof will make me cry ba.'^ 

Ana when we come to the con^ it is still more forced. 
Thy horse will sooner con an oration."* 

The cipher pressed him hard when he wrote such a sentence as 
this: It is not the horse will deliver an oration, or the horse will 
study an oration, but the horse will con it. 

And again: 

But I can him no thanks for it." 
Yet, thanks, I must you con}'^ 

This is sheer nonsense. 

Then several curious facts presented themselves. We seem to 
have many references in a cipher narrative to different plays and 
poems. I have already called attention to that instance of the word 
Adonis, — 

Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,'^ — ■ 

and the difficulty the commentators had to discover what it meant. 
In the same play, in the same act, scene 2, I found the word 

Venus: 

Bright star of J'enus, fallen down. 

This gives us the two words of the name of the poem of Venus 
and Adonis, the "first heir of the poet's invention." 

' Richard llf., iv, 2. ''Julius Crpsar, iv, 3. 

'•< Timon of Athens^ i, 2. ^ Love s Labor Lost, v, i. 

"^ Lear, iii, 4. ^ Two Gentlemen 0/ I'erona, i, 1. 

'^AlVs Well that Ends Well, ii, 3. " Troilus and Cressida, ii, i. 

* Twelfth Night, iv, a. " AlVs Well that Ends Well, iv, 3. 

^ Richard U., ii, .\. '- Timou of Athens, iv, 3. 

^■^ 1st Ilenrv 11., i, 6. 



now I BECAME CERTAIN THERE WAS A CIPHER. 537 

In Titus Aiidroiiiius^ we have all the words necessary to con- 
struct the name of his second poem, The Rapt- of Lucrcce. 

The words of the name of Marlowe's play, Did(\ Queen of Car- 
I/iage, all appear in The Merehaiit of Venice. 

The name of Marlowe's play Doetor Faustus appears in 'J'/ie 
Merry Wives of Windsor, Faustus beiny; in the possessive case, 
"Doctor Faustuses."' 

The name of Marlowe's great play I'anduoiaine appears in The 
Merry Wives of Windsor very ingeniously concealed. The Welsh- 
man says, in his broken English, 

The tevil and his tarn.'' 

Again : 

What wouldst thou have, hoor.'^ 

And it is to be observed that this word boor occurs nowhere else 
in the Plays; neither does tani. The word boors, in the plural, is 
found once, and once only, in The Winter s Tale :^ but even that 
would not make the second syllable of Tainburlaine. 

The last syllable was probably formed by a combination oi' lax 

and ///. 

When the court tay at Windsor." 

The ins, of course, are numerous in the play. 

Richard Simpson, in his valuable work, The Sehool of Shakspere,^ 

has an interesting discussion upon the play of Histriomastix, which 

he supposes to be written by Marston. In it the author introduces 

Troilus and Cressida, and Troilus makes a burlesque speech in which 

this line occurs: 

And when he s/iaki'x his furious .prd/Y. 

This Mr. Simpson believes to l)e an "allusion to Shakespeare." 
And strange to say, w^hile Shakespeare seems to be alluded to in 
the Histriovuistix in this burlesque Troilus and Cressida, in the 
real Troi/us and Cressida the Histrioniastix is plainly referred to. 
While Marston mocks Shakespeare in his play, the real Shake- 
speare probably tells, in cipher, something significant about the 
Histrioniastix in his play; for it is conceded that there was a battle 
of wits at this time, participated in by Jonson, Marston and 
others. 

' Act iv, scenes i and 2. "^ Merry Wives, iv, 5. -'Ibid., i, t. 

-• Ibid., i V, 5. •'■ Act v, scene 2. " Ibid., ii, 2. 

' Voi. ii, p. 3. 



•^38 J'Jii'. cjriiER JX THE /'la)s. 

In Troiliis and Crcssida the word try occurs only once: 

Let me i^o and /;;r. ' 
The first part of this word Histriomastix could he easily con- 
structed of his-try-o. The his and o occur repeatedly: 

O when degree is shaked.'-' 
Tlie last part of the word i/iastix is given as niasf/'ck 

Speak, Prince of Ithaca, and be't of less expect 
That matter needless, of importless burden, 
Divide thy lips, than we are confident. 
When rank Thersites opes his nmslii-k jaws. 
We shall hear music, wit and oracle.'* 

In the first place "the rank Thersites" has no place here. He 
is not in the scene. The debate is between Ulysses and Agamem- 
non. Ulysses asks Agamemnon to "hear what Ulysses speaks," 
and Agamemnon replies as above. But what is " mastick " ? There 
is no such word in the language. It is printed in the Folio with a 
capital initial, "as marking something emphatic," says Knight. In 
some editions the word had been changed into //lasfh'c, simplv 
because the commentators did not know what it meant. But 
both Simpson and Knight, although they had no idea of a cipher, 
thought that it was an allusion to the play of Hislrioiiuutix. 

T/l' Massaor of Pan's, another of Marlowe's plays, may be 
alluded to in the /st Hiiiry VI. : 

The general wreck and iims.uinr.^ 
This word is found only in three of the Flays, and in two of 
these the word Pan's occurs. In /sf Hairy V/. it occurs in the 
same scene with //lassacrr. 

Orleans, Pa>-is, Guysors, Poictiers.'' 
In Richard HI . we have: 

Destruction, blood and )nassacTc.'^ 
In the same play we have: 

Crowned in J'aris.'^ 

George Peele's play, The Arraignjnciit of Paris, seems to i;,- 
referred to in Hamlet : 

Our person to arraign in ear and car." 

' I'roiliis ami Crcssida, iii, 2. ^ ist Henry /'/., i. i. ' Ibid., ii, ;;. 

-Ibid., i, I. ^ Ibid., ii. 'Hamlet 'v. 

^ Ibid., i, 3. " Richard III,, ii, 4. 



//()Jl- / BECAME CF.RTAEX TIIEKE WAS A CJJ'JJEE. 5J9 

Will he tell us what this show /lu-an/. 
First what T)anskers are in Paris.- 
This is the only time ttie word Fan's is used in Hamlet. 
Ben Jonson's play of Cynthia's Revels seems to be referred to in 
Romeo and Juliet and in Pericles. It is remarkable that Cynthia 
appears only twice in the Plays, and each time in the same play we- 
ll nd the word Revels. 

The jiale reflex of Cvii/Iiia' s brow."' 
With this night's /vrv/,.-.-' 
This is the only occasion revels appears in Romeo and Juliet^ 
In Pericles we have: 

Hv the eve of Cv)illna hath.' 

And again : 

Which looks for other /vrvA.'' 

This is the only time the word revels appears in Pericles. 

Marlowe wrote the poem of Hero and Lcandcr. In the Shake- 
speare Plays Leander occtirs in but three plays, The Two Gentlemen 
of Verona, Much Ado About jVothin^^ and As You Like Jt, and in each 
of these plaxs the mime of Hero occurs, -a\-\(\. only once in any other 
play, to-wit, Romeo and Juliet ! This is certainly remarkable, that 
out of all the I'lays Leander should occur in but three and Hero in 
l)ut four; and in three out of four it matches Leander : 

In The Two Gentlemen of W-rona we have: 

Scale another Herd s tower.'' 
And again: 

Young I.Ciindir.^ 
In Much Ado vye have: 

It is proved, mv lady Itrro.'^ 
And again: 

/.rc!ii(/,T. the gootl swimmer."' 

In As Von Like !f \vc have: 

Though Ilnn had turned nun." 

And again: 

Lcandcr, he would liave lived.'- 
In the last four instances the words occur in the same art and 
scene. 

' IlaiiiUt. iii, -. ' l''a>o Cetitlcmoi 0/ Wroiui. ii, i. 

•^Ibid., ii, T. "Ibid., i, 1. 

'^ Roinfc and Ji<n,t, iii, 5. '' Much . l,/" . Xhout Xof/i/iix. v, 2. 

4Ibid., i, 4. '"Ibid. 

^ Pericles, ii, 4. '^'^ As You Like It, iv, 1. 

"■•Tbid., ii, ;. '^ibid. 



540 J'JIJ-'- CJPJIEK IX THE PLAYS. 

Marlowe also translated the Elegies of Ovid, and we find the 

-words translate^ Elegies, Ovid, all in As You Like It : 

Make thee away, translate thy life.' 
And elegies on brambles.'-' 
Honest Ot'iJ.^ 

And in Love's J.ahor L.ost we have again translation and Ovidius. 
A translation of hypocrisy.'* 
Oi'idiits Naso was the man.'' 

■ This is the only time translation and Ovidius occur in the entire 
Shakespeare Plays, and, strange to say, we find them in the same play ! 

The words Edward the Seeond, another of Marlowe's plays, appear 
in The Merry IJ'ives of Windsor, Henry VI J L, Kiehard LL., 2d Henry 
//'., 1st Henry F/., etc. 

It thus appears that we find embalmed in the Shakespeare Plays 
the names of every one of Marlowe's plays or poems except The Jew 
of Malta, and even in this instance the name of the principal char- 
acter of the play, the bloody and murderous Jew, Barabbas, is found 
in The Merchant of Venice; and the words Jeiv and malt (combined 
by a hyphen with "malt-worms") occur in ist Henry IV. It would 
need but an a to complete the name. And both the Jeiv and tlie 
jttalt are found in the same act. 

The full name of Christopher Marlowe appears in The Taming of 
the Shretv. Thtis: 

CliristopherS\\-.^ 
1 did not bid you mar it. ' 
A low, submissive reverence.** 
In none of the other plays is such a combination found, for the 
word Christopher occurs in no other play. 

The combination Mar and hnv appears in The 7'enipest, The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona and The Winters Tale, while Mar and ^ will 
be found in several others. 

The name of Bacon's l:»eautiful home at St. Albans — Gorhams- 
})iirx — appears in Ronieo and J tiliet, thus: 

In blood, all in ,>,•■<'/<■ blood. '^ 

A man to bow in the Iiaiiis.''^'' 

And badest me bury love." 

1 . 1.V ) -OH JJA:- It, V, 1 . •'' thid., iv, 2. ■' Act Hi, scene 2. 

^Ibid., Hi, ^ '■ I'amingofihe Sln-ew, Induction. "'Act ii, scene 4. 

3 Ibid.! iii! '1 ' Ibid., iv, 3. ' ' Act ii, scene s- 

"^Lovi's Laltor Lost, v, :>-. " H'id., Induction. 



//OW I BECAME CEKTAIX EJ/ /■/,'/■: H.IS .1 < '//'// A A\ 



541 



In Hamh't we have the name of Bacon's dear friend Hctirnhain. 

pronounced Battenham, to whom he erected a monument at (irav's 

Inn: 

T(j batten on this moor.' 

Together with most weak liaiiisr 
« 
I observed also the name Ra^vlcy (the name of his ciuiphun) in 

Hniry /'.; 

Their children ra-cly left^ — 

while the combination .S» Walter Raleigh thus appears in Richard 

III.: 

Sir Jl'dlti-r Herbert.-* 

The air is AV/ti' and cold.' 
A book of prayers on their pillow An'.'' 

And again in Troiliis a/td Crrssida, thus: 

Cold palsies, ;v?t<' eyes." 
Drink up the lu's and dregs.'* 

While the combination ra7c> and lay is found in The J ferry JVives 
of JVindsor, Love's Labor Lost and five other plays. 
The name of Bacon's uncle, Burleigh, is found in 

The /'//;7i'-b()ned clown.'' 
Now the hurly7'//;-/i''.f done.'" 
The news f)f hurly-/'///7i' innovation." 

I observed another curious fact, that the name of the play Meas- 
ure for Measure seemed to be very often referred to in the dramas; 
and in many cases the words ran in couples. Thus the word meas- 
ure appears in the Merry Wives of Windsor only twice: 

To measure our weapons. '- 
To guide our measure round about.''* 

In Twelfth Night it likewise appears only twice: 

In a good tripping measure}^ 
After a passy measure}' 

In Measure for Measure itself the play seeins to be referred to„ 
in the cipher narrative, thus: 

No sinister measure}^ 
And measure still for measure}' 

1 Act iii, scene 4. '' Act v, scene i. " Act v, scene 5. 

- Act ii, scene 2. * Act iv, scene i. '^ Act v, scene i. 

3 Act iv, scene I. ^ 2ii Henry l'/..i\', to. '^ Act v, scene i. 

4 Act V, scene 3 — Act iv, scene 5. '" Macbeth, i, i. '* Act iii, scene 2.. 

5 Act V, scene 3. ' ' rst Henry Jl '., v, i. " Act v, scene i.. 
" Act iv, scene 3. '^ Act i, scene 4. 



"42 'J J /I: ciJ'iiF.R ix riir. ri A vs. 

In A Winter's Tid(' llic word also ()CCui-> twicr, ami oiil}' 
twice: 

McastDi- nie. ' 
The iiirasiirc of the couit.-' 
In llic Comedy of lin-ois it also appears twice only: . 

Not lUi-nsiii;- her from hip Id hip.'' 
Took iii,-tt.u(i\- of niv Ijoily."* 
In Machct/i we tiiul thr same dualism: 

Anon we'll drink ;i /iiiui.uirt-.'' 
We will perform in iiicasiin-/' 

In Troilus and Ci'cssida we have the same word twice: 
By ii/idsiiic' of their oliservant toil." 
I'air denies in all fair inrdsiiir.'^ 
In A'/nx lAor also it appears in this double foini: 
If you will /ncasniY your lul)ber's lenirth.'' 
And every //wasinr fail me.'" 

Ill Othello we have it ao^airi twice, the last tim ' in the possessive 
case, as if he was speaking of Alcasiire for A/easures success, thus: 

'Would fain have a mrasiDr to the health." 
Nor for iiit'dsmrs of lawn.''- 

If the reader will examine the subject he will hnd that the word 
Jiieasiire runs in couples all through the other plays. It is either 
matched with itself in the same play, as in As You Like It, where it 
occurs in three couples; in Love s L^abor Lost, where there are also 
three couples; \\\ Rieliard J I ., where there are two couples; \w 3d 
Henry J^I., where there are also two couples, and in Antony and Cleo- 
patra, wdiere there are also two couples; or it is found in the end 
of one play, matching with the same word in the beginning of the 
next play in the Folio, for the cipher narrative is oftentimes contin- 
uous from pla}^ to play. 

The name of the plays now generally attributed to Shakespeare, 
the first and second parts of The Contention of the Houses of York and 
Lancaster, is found in the /.s/ and 2d Henry /J\, thus: 

' Act ii, scene I. "^ Act iii, scene 4. " Act i, scene 4. 

- Act iv, .scene 3. '• Act v, scene 7. '" .Act iv, scene 7. 

2 Act iii, scene 2. ' Act i, scene 3. ' ' Act ii, scene 3. 

■* Act iv, scene .;. " Act iii, scene 1. '- -Act iv, scene 3. 



jfoi\' I n/:cAMi': cf.rtaix '/•///■:a-k was a cii'iiek. 



54: 



In the very heat 

And pride of their contrntion } 

And dialls the signs of leaping-Z/c/zj-f-j-.'- 
As oft as Z(r;7rrt'.r/,;- doth speak.'' 
His uncle York} 

The name reappears, abbreviated, in tiie l)e_SJ^inninij of j sf H<-ur\ 

/ I '. : 

T!ic times are wilij, Contcnlion like ;i horse.-"' 

Hcl7vcc)i liie royal fieid of Shrcwslnirv.'' 

The gentle archbishop of York is up.'' 

Under the conduct of young Laucastcr^ 

And tlie entire name, as it appears upon tlie title-page of tlie 

original quarto, is given \\\ jil Henry J'/., ^'T/ic Coiifciitioii of the two 

Pamoiis Houses of York ami Lancaster^ Thus: 

^Co (.luarrel. but a slight <-(^iil,-nlioti ."^ 

Would buy /ri'(' hours' life.'" 

Were he as fttiiioiis and as bold." 

The colors of our striving /iciisrs.^'- 

Strengthening mis-proud )'(';■/•.'' 

() /.ainas/t-i\ I fear thy overthrow." 

The wortl lontciition is an unusual one and appears in but fotir 
other plays, viz.: Henry / '., Troiliis and CressiJa, Cynibeline and 
Othello, and in each case I think it has reference, in cipher, to the 
play of The Contention of }'ti/-h and La /waster, one of the earliest of 
the author's writings. It is not found at all in thirty of the plays. 

And how strained and unnatural is the use of this word 
contention ] It is plainly dragged into the te.xt. As thus: 

CoiiL-n/ii'/i (like a horse 
Full of high feeding) madly hath broke loose.'"' 

And let the world no longer be a stage 
To feed contention in a lingering act. 

The genius of the author drags a thread of sense through these 
sentences, but it is exceedingly attenuated and gossamery. 

The name of Bacon's early philosophical work. The Masculine 
Birth of Time, appears in three of the plays. The word masculine 

' Act i, scene i. "Act i, scene i. " Act ii, scene i. 

^ Act i, scene 2. '' Act i, scene 2. ''^ Act ii, scene 5. 

^ .\ct iii, scene i. '-' .\ct i, scene 2. '^ Act ii, scene 6. 

■' .\ct i, scene 3. " Act i, scene 2. " Act ii, scene 6. 

■'' Act i, scene I. '" Act ii, scene 6. '■'■ 5</ //<■«;•>■ /f-'., ii, 2. 



544 



THE CiriJEK JX THE FLA VS. 



is an unusual word in poetry; it occurs but three times in the entire 
Folio, and each time the words /n'rf/i and fii/i<' accompany it, 
either in the same scene or close at hand. For instance, in Twelfth 
Ni^ht, in act v, in the same scene (scene i) we have all three of the 
words, masculine, birth, time. In ist Henry F/., masei/Ii/ie is in act 
ii, scene i, while birth and time occur in act ii, scene iv. In 
Troiliis and Cressida they appear in act v, scene i, and act iv, scene 4. 

The Advancement of Learning, the name of one of Bacon's great 
works, is found in The Te'mpest, 2d Henry IV. and Hamlet. The 
words Scaling Ladders of the Lntelligence are all found in Coriolani/s. 

With these and many other similar observations, I became satis- 
fied that there was a cipher narrative interwoven into the body and 
texture of the Plays. Any one of the instances I have given would 
by itself have proved nothing, but the multitude of such curious 
coincidences was cumulative and convincing. 

Granted there was a cipher, how was I to find it? 



CHAPTER III. 

A VAIN SEARCH IN THE COMMON EDITIONS 

He apprehends a world of tif,'ures here, 
But not the form of what he should attend. 

^ 1st Henry //'., i,j. 

IF there was a cipher in the Plays, written by Francis Bacon, why 
should it not be Bacon's cipher, to-wit: a cipher of words 
infolded in other words, " the writing infolding holding a quintuple 
proportion to the writing infolded " ? 

And if I was to find it out, why not begin on those words, 
Francis, Bacon, Nicholas, Bacon's, son, in the ist Henry IV., act ii ? 

I did so, using an ordinary edition of the Plays. For days and 
weeks and months I toiled over those pages. I tried in every pos- 
sible way to establish some arithmetical relation between these 
significant words. It was all in vain. I tried all the words on 
page 53, on page 54, on page 55. I took every fifth word, every 
tenth word, every twentieth word, every fiftieth word, every hun- 
dredth word. But still the result was incoherent nonsense. I 
counted from the top of the pages down, from the bottom up, 
from the beginning of acts and scenes and from the ends of acts 
and scenes, across the pages, and hop, skip and jump in every 
direction; still, it produced nothing but dire nonsense. 

Since it was announced in the daily press of the Ignited States 
that I claimed to have discovered a cipher in the Shakespeare 
Plays, there have been some who have declared that it was easy 
enough to make any kind of a sentence out of any work. I grant 
that if no respect is paid to arithmetical rules this can easily be 
done. If the decipherer is allowed to select the words he needs at 
random, wherever he finds tliem, he can make, as Bacon savs, 
" anything out of anything; " he could prove in this way that the 
Apostle Paul wrote Cicero's orations. But I insist that, wherever 
any arithmetical proportion is preserved between the words 
selected, it is impossible to find five words that will cohere in 

545 



546 THE CIPHER i.\ the plays. 

sense, orrammar or rhetoric; in fact, it is very rarely that three can 
be found to agree together in proper order. 

To proye this, let me take this yery page 55 of ist Hoiry //'.. on 
vyhich Nicholas Hacon is found, and ti-y the tenth, twentietl;, 
fiftieth and hundredth words: 

The tenth words are: 

TOy — //,- — bids, — a, — can, — and, — found, — how, — loohs, — on,— F, — 
ripe, — loc, — once, — l>raiu\ — -wc, — thrive, — shorf, — Heii^h, etc. 

The twentieth words are*: 

//, — a, — a/id, — //cw, — on, — > ip<\ — o/icc, — 7i<c, — short, — hani;(\/, — 
Ton/,- — o/\ — girc, — since, — ///, — ///, — a, — arcav, etc . 

The fiftieth words are: 

Can, — on,— bearc, — hanged, — as, — ///, — your. — never, — /, — go, — 
picking, — of, — it, — ine, — mad, — pray, etc. 

The hundredth words are: 

O n, — hanged, — ///, — nei'cr, — He, — -loild, — //', — tiien, etc. 

The liveliest imagination and the vastest ingenuity can make 
nothing of such sentences as these, tvyist them how you will. The 
presence of order, and the coherence of things in the visil)le uni- 
verse, prove the Creator. The existence of a regular, rhetorical, 
grammatical, reasonable sentence, occurring at stated and unvary- 
ing intervals in the texture of a work, proves conclusively that 
some mind so prearranged it. The man who would believe 
otherwdse has just cause of complaint against the (iod who so mis- 
erably equipped him for the duties of life. He would be ready to 
believe, as Bacon himself has said, and as 1 have quoted elsewhere, 
that you could write the separate letters of the alphabet on a vast 
number of slips of paper, and then, by mixing and jumljling them 
together, they would accidentally assume the shape of Homer's 
Tliad: 

A consecutive thought demonstrates a brain behind it. 

If this prove false, 
The pillared firmament is rottenness. 
And earth's base built on stubble. ^ 

After many weary months of this self-imposed toil, trying every 
kind and combination of numbers that I could think of, I gave it 
up in despair. I did not for one instant doubt that there was a 
cipher in the Plays. I simply could not find it. 



A yjJ.V SEAJ^CJ/ J\ rilE COMMON EDITIOAS. 547 

I wrote my books Atlantis and Rag/uirok. After these were 
-off my hands, my mind kept recurring to the problem of the cipher. 
At length this thought came to me: 

The common editions qi the Plays have been doctored, altered, 
corrected by the commentators. What evidence have I that the 
words on these pages are in anything like their original order? 
The change of a word, of a hyphen, would throw out the whole 
count. 

I must get a copy of the play as it was originally pub- 
lished. I knew there were fac-similc copies of the great Folio of 
1623. I must procure one. At first I bought a copy, octavo form, 
reduced, published by Chatto & Windus. But I found the type 
was too small for tlie kind of work I proposed. I at length, July 
1, 1882, procured '^ facsimile copy, folio size, made by photo-litho- 
graphic process, and, therefore, an exact reproduction of type, 
pages, punctuation and everything else. It is one of those "exe- 
cuted under the superintendence of H. Staunton," and published in 
i866 by Day & Son, London. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE (;REAT folio edition OE /6jS' 
Look, Lucius, liere's the bonk I soui^ht fur. 

IN 1623 Shakspere had been dead seven years; Elizabeth had' 
long before gone to her account; James was king; the Plays 
had ceased to appear more than twelve years before. In that time 
Bacon had mounted to the highest station in the kingdom. But a 
great tempest was arising — a tempest that was to sweep England, 
Ireland and Scotland, and bring mighty men to the surface; and 
its first wild gusts had hurled the great Lord Chancellor in shame 
and dishonor from his chair. 

In 1623 Bacon, amid the wreck of his fortune, was settling up 
his accounts with his own age and getting ready for posterity. 
He said, in a letter to Tobie Matthew: 

It is true my labors are most set to have those works, which I formerly pub- 
lished, as that of Advancement of Learning, that of Henry VII., that of the Essays, 
being retractate, and made more perfect, well translated into Latin by the help 
of some good pens, which forsake me not. For these modern languages will, at 
one time or another, play the bankrupt with books; and since I have lost much 
time with this age, I would be glad, as God shall give me leave, to recover it 
with posterity. 

After speaking, in a letter to the Bishop of AVinchester, of the 
examples afforded him by Demosthenes, Cicero and Seneca, in the 
times of their banishment, he proceeds: 

These examples confirmed me much in a resolution, whereunto I was other- 
wise inclined, to spend my time wholly in writing, and to put forth that poor 
talent, or half talent, or what it is, that (jod has given me, not, as heretofore, to 
particular e.xchanges, but to banks or mounts of perpetuity, which will not break. 

The De Aiignicniis was published at the same time, in the same 
year, as the Folio, and in it, as I have shown, is contained the 
chapter on ciphers, and a description of that best of all ciphers — 
ovniia per omnia, where one writing is infolded in another. Thus 
the cipher narrative and the key to it went out together in the 
same year. 



THE GREAT FOLIO EDITION OF 162J. 549 

The N'oviiiii Ori^ai/i/i/i was published, incomplete, in the autumn 
of 1620; and lie gave as a reason for sending it forth unfinished 
that "he numbered his days and would have it saved." 

In the same way he desired to save Macbet/i, Julius Cwsar, HenrY 

VIll., Cyuilhl/ut', T/if Winters Ta/e, etc., from the oblivion th.at 

would fall upon them unless he published them; for the man in 

whose name they were to be given out had taken no steps to secure 

their rescue from the waters of Lethe. 

^ And he speaks of them, as I take it, enigmatically in the fol- 
lowing: 

As for my Essays, and some otht'r partuiilars of thiil natiir,-, I coiinl them but as 
fhe recreation of my other studies, and in that sort I propose to continue them, thou.ijh 
f am not ignorant that those kind of writings would, with less pains and embrace- 
ment. perhaps yield more luster and reputation to my name than those other which 
I have in hand. But I count the use that a man should seek of the publishing of 
his own writings, before his death, to be but an untimely anticipation of that which 
is proper to follo\y a man, not to go along with him.' 

We have seen him describing poetry as a recreation, as some- 
thing that ''slipped" from one like gum from the tree; and we 
have seen him, in his letters to Tobie Matthew, referring to certain 
"works of his recreation," which no one was to be allowed to 
cop}-, and to unnamed " works of the alphabet." And now he says 
that he proposes to publish these works, and "continue them" 
down to posterity. And he believes that these works would yield 
more luster and reputation to his name than those which he has in 
hand, to-wit, his philosophical and prose works, Surelv the Essaxs 
and the acknowledged fragments he left behind would not yield 
more "luster and reputation" than \.\\<ii Novum Ors^auuni and the 
Dc Aue;;iiir)ifis. He must refer, then, to some great woi-ks. And 
hov/ purposely obscure is that last sentence! 

I count the use that a man should seek of the publishing of his own writings 
before his death to be but an untimely anticipation of that which is pro]3er to fol- 
low a man, not to go along with him. 

He is taking the utmost pains to ptdiiish his writings before his 
death, "remembering his days, and that they must ht; saved," and 
vet lie tells us that this is an untimely anticipation of what must 
follow him. That is, if the works are not publislied thev will l)e 
lost; and il is better the\' should be lost; and then the glorv of 

' Letter t<> the Bisli(i|i of Wiiicliester. 



5-0 THE cjriiKR rx THE J' LA vs. 

them will follow the author's death! Bacon is never obscure 
unless he intends to be so. And in this I think he means as fol- 
lows: 

. . . -\s for my Essays and the Shakespeare Plays, I will continue them — pre- 
serve them for posterity. I am aware that those plays would give more luster and 
reputation to my name, if I acknowledged them, than my philosophical writings; 
but I think there is a certain glory which should follow a man, by rising up long 
after his death, rather than accompany him by being published in his own name 
l)efore his death. 

If he does not hint at this, what does he mean ? Surely there is 
no great distinction between a man publisliing his writings a year 
before his death, and having his executors publish them a year after 
liis death; and why should the one be an " untimely anticipation of 
the other"? And just about this period Bacon writes to Sir Tobie 
that "it is time to put the alphabet in a frame ; " and we will see 
that the cipher depends on the paging of the great Folio, and the 
paging is as a frame to tlie text. 

And side by side with the Novum Oi\(;a/Niin and the De Aiii^nicn- 
tis, mighty pillars of his glory, appears, at the same time, this noble 
Folio, which, as Collier says, ** docs credit to the age, even as a speci- 
men of typography."' 

And at the same time Lord Bacon sends some " great and noble 
token " to Sir Tobie Matthew, and Sir Tobie does not dare to name 
the work in his letter of thanks, but, in the obscure way common to 
the correspondence of these men, says: " The most prodigious wit 
that ever I knew, of my nation and of this side of the sea, is of your 
lordship's name, though he be known by another." That is to say. 
Sir Tobie, writing probably from Madrid, says: " Your lordship is 
the first of wits — you are the greatest wit I have ever known, 
either in England, ' my nation,' or Europe, ' on this side of the sea," 
though you have disguised your greatness under an assumed 
name." 

And "a great and noble token," indeed, is this F"olio. The world 
has never seen, will never see such another. It is more lustrous 
than those other immortal books, the JVovu/zi Orgainiin and the 
Dc Ai/giiicntis, and its columnar light will shine througli all the 
ages. It is another Homer — more vast, more civilized, more 
varied, more complicated; multiplied in all forms and powers a 

' luigh's/i Dvanxiiic Poetry^ vol. iii, p. 313. 



THE GREAT TOLIO EDITION OF ibjj. 551 

thousand-fold. And no f)ther name than Homer is worthy to be 

mentioned beside it. 

Collier says of the Folio: 

As a specimen of typography it is on the whole remarkably accurate; and so 
(iesiroLis were the editors and printers of correctness that they introduced changes 
for the better even while the sheets were in pnjgress through the press.' 

Even to-day it must be a subject of admiraticm. Its ponderous 
size, its clear, large type, its careftil punctuation, its sid)stantial 
paper, its thousand pages, all testify that in its day it was a work 
of great cost and labor. 
• I had read somewhere that it was very irregularly paged, and 
when I procured my fai-siiiiilc copy I turned first to this point. 

I found the volume was divided, as the iiulex showed, into three 
divisions. Comedies, Histories and Tragedies; and that the paging 
followed these divisions, commencing at page i in each instance. 
This was not unreasonable or extraordinary. In some cases there 
are errors of the printer, plainly discernible as such. For instance, 
page 153 of the Comedies is printed 151, but the next page is marked 
with the correct number, 154; page 59 of the Comedies is printed 
page 51; page 89 of the Histories is printed 91; 90 is printed 92, etc. 
But as a whole the Comedies are printed very regularly. In each 
case the first page of a play follows precisely the ntimber of the 
last page of the preceding play. Between Twelfth Night and The 
\]lnt('rs Tale there is a blank page, but even this is taken into 
account, although it is not numbered. The last page of Twelfth 
Alight \% 275, then comes the blank page, which shoidd be 276, and 
the first page of The Winter s Tale is 277. I call attention to this 
particularly, because it goes to prove that the great changes in the 
numbering of pages of some of the Plays, in the Histories, are not 
likely to have been the result of negligence. 

The Histories begin" with King John, on page i, and the 
pages proceed in regular order to page 37, in the play of Riehard II., 
which is misprinted 39. Riehard II. ends on page 45; the next play, 
1st Henry IV., begins on page 46; then pages 47 and 48 are missing, 
and the next page is 49; and after this the paging proceeds in due 
order, with the exception of the apparent typographical errors on 
pages 89, 91, etc., already referred to, to the end of the 2d Henry IV., 

^ £t!£-/is/i Dran:at'i<- l^retry, vol. iii, p. 31;;;. 



:^5:: THE CIPHER EY THE PLAYS. 

which terminates on page loo. Then there is an Epilogue, which 
occupies an unnumbered page, which would be, if numbered, loi; 
then another unnumbered page is devoted to the names of the 
characters in the play; this should be page 102. The next page is 
the opening of the play of Henry I'., but, instead <)i being page 103, 
it is numbered 69 ! 

If, after this number, 69, the pages had proceeded again, 104, 105, 
106, etc., in regular order, we might suppose that the 69 was a typo- 
graphical error. But no; the paging runs 70, 71, 72, 73, in perfect 
order, to 95, the last page of the play, and the next play, isf Henry 
/F., begins on page 96; and so the paging continues, in due order, 
with one or two slight mistakes, which are immediately corrected, 
to the end of Henry VIII., on page 232. 

Here again we have a surprise : 

The next page, unnumbered, is the prologue to Troilits and Cres- 
s/la. It should be page 233; the next, on which the play opens, 
is also unnumbered, but should be page 234; the next page is 
numbered, but instead of page 235 it is page 79 ! The next is 
80, and <?// f/ie rest of the pages of Troilus and Cressida are left 
unnumbered ! 

Now, when it is remembered that some of the typographical 
errors first referred to (such as calling 153, 151. but making the rest 
of the paging before and after it correct) are in some of the copies 
of the Folio printed with the proper page numbers, showing, as Mr. 
Collier says, that the printers were so desirous of accuracy that 
they stopped the press to make necessary corrections, it is inexpli- 
cable that they should permit such a break to remain as that 
between 2d Henry I]', and Henry J'., where the count fell off thirty- 
three pages. But it may be said the mistake occurred without their 
noticing it. If pages were numbered as we number manuscript 
copv, this might be possible, for, making a mistake in the true num- 
ber in one instance, we may naturally enough continue the mistake 
in the subsequent pages. But how the same printers who stopped 
the press to correct minor errors could have allowed this great 
error to stand, I cannot comprehend. 

But this is not all. How could the)' possibly fail to observe the 
fact that a great number of pages \w Troilus and Cressida had no 
numbers at all 1 



rilE GREAT FOLIO EDJ'JJOX OF 162s. 55;, 

It is said that Troiius and Cressii/a was inserted as an after- 
thought, and this is confirmed by the fact that it does not appear 
in the Table of Contents, and therefore it was not paged, l^ut it 
is paged so far as two pages are concerned, 79 and 80. If it had 
been inserted all unpaged, or all paged to correspond with Ilciirx 
rill., we could understand it. But where did those numbers 79 
and 80 come fnmi ? There is no place in the volume where there 
is any break at page 78; we cannot therefore suppose that it was 
shifted from its proper place, and carried some of its paging with it. 

But I found still another instance where the first page of a play 
does not follow the number of the preceding play. In the Trage- 
dies, Timoii of Athens ends with page 98; then follows a list of the 
characters in the play, which occupies a page; this, if numbered, 
woidd be page 99. Then comes a blank page, which we will call 
loo; then Jiiliits CiFsar opens with page 109 ! It is correctly paged 
to the end of the play. Why this break of eight pages ? 

The paging is also broken in upon to make Tiniou of Athens 
begin witl: page 80. The preceding play is Romeo and Juliet ; it 
begins on page 53, and the pages are regularly numbered until we 
reach the last page, which, instead of being 77, is 79. Then Tinion 
opens on page So, and the paging runs along to 81 and 82, and 
then repeats itself : 81, 82. If we will correct 79 to 77, we will find 
that the second 81 and 82 are exactly right. But why was the cor- 
rection not made on the first page instead of the fourth ? 

It seemed to me that these repeated instances of Henry J\, 
Troiius and Cressida, Julius Ccesar and Tinio/i of Athens proved con- 
clusively that there was some secret depending upon the paging of 
the Folio, and that these plays had been written upon the basis of 
a cipher which did not correspond with the natural paging of the 
Folio; and that this paging had to be forcibly departed from in this 
way, and continued, per order, even when the printers were cor- 
recting minor errors. 

I was the more confirmed in this by a study of the "signa- 
tures " or " tokens " of the printers. 

The signatures, as shown by the token numbers at the bottom 
of the pages, run in groups of twelve pages, thus: a, a blank; 
a2, a blank; aj (sometimes af), and then six blanks, making 
twelve pages or six leaves in all. Now, where 2d Henrx //'. joins 



cr^ THE CIPHER IN THE PLA YS. 

on to Henry V. the signatures ran: ,s,';<^, a blank; gg2, a blank; ^^j, a 
blank ; ^g4, a blank, and then eight pages blanks, or four more than 
the regular number; tiien the first page of Nniiy J', is marked //, theri 
a blank, then //2, then a blank, then //j, then six blanks, and then 
/, etc. It, therefore, appears that the printers had to piece out Henry 
IV. b\ the insertion of fonr fages additional : and certainly all this 
doetoring could not have been accomplished without the printers 
observing that the last page of 2d Henry IV. was paged loo, and the 
first page of Henry / '. numbered 69. And as the signature of Henry J '. 
is //, following ,tf^'-, when properly it should have been ////, it would 
seem as if the Henry V. was paged and tokened separately. This 
could only have been done under specific directions; and this would 
look as if the Plays were printed in separate parcels. 

It also appears that the Troilns and Cressida must have been 
printed separately. All the tokens of the other plays are alphabeti- 
cal, as a, />, e, etc., aa, ld\ ee, etc. But in the Troiliis and Cressida 
the signatures are all composed of the printers' sign for a para- 
graph, ^, mixed with g, thus: g, I2, gj, H, 1^2, %j, and the 
last page of the play is marked 1"^1[, then a blank leaf, and then 
the Tragedies open with aa. But as the twelve pages of the signa- 
ture X, which composed the last part of Henry V/II., w^:>uld have 
properly extended over into two pages of T^roilns and Cressida, it is 
evident that there must have been more doctoring here. A printer 
will see at once that Troilns and Cressida must have been set up by 
itself, and marked by different tokens, so as not to conflict with the 
rest of the work, which therefore 7vas not Jinis/ied ; and consc- 
(juently that it would have been most natural for the printer to 
have paged it regularly from page i to the end, or made the paging" 
correspond with the last page of Henry /'///., or not paged it at all. 
There is no reason for paging two leaves 79 and 80, and leaving 
the rest blank. And there is no reason why, when the pressmen 
stopped the press to correct the accidental errors in the paging in 
(ither instances, they should have left these errors standing. It 
seemed to me beyond a question that these inconsistencies in the 
paging were jnade to order. 

Roberts, the actor, asserted that Henry Condell was a printer 
by trade;' and it is very possible that the Folio ( f 162,^ may have 

' Collier's I-'.in:. Iii-aiii. /Wt>-y\ iii, V 7- 



THE GREAT FOLIO EDITION OF 1623. 5:^5 

been set up under liis immediatf supervision, c;n(l lience ihese 
frregularities perpetuated by his orders. 

Being satisfied that there was a cijiher in ihe Phiys, and tliat ii 
probably had some connection with the paging of the P'olio, I 
turned to page 53 of the Histories, where the line occurs: 

I have a gammon of BACt)N and two razes of ginger.' 

I commenced and counted from the top of tiie column down- 
ward, word by word, counting only the spoken words, until 1 
reached the word B.-^con, and I found it was the 371st word. 

I then divided that number, 371, by fifty-three, the number ol 
the page, and the quotient was seven! That is, the number of the 
page multiplied by seven produces the number of the word Bacoii^ 

Thus: 

53 
7 

371 

This I regarded as extraordinary. There are 938 words on the 
page, and there was, therefore, only one chance out of 938 that anv 
particular word on the page would match the number of the page. 

But where flid that seven come from which, multiplying 53. 
|)roduced 3 7 1 = 7) (i-cv// ? I found there were seven italic words 
on the first column of page 53, to-wit: (i) Morfi/iier, (2) G/e/i- 
'ihnve}\ (3) jMortii)te)\ (4) Douglas, (5) Charles, (6) JJ'a///e, (7) Robin. 
If the reader will turn to the fae-siinih\ given herewith, he mav 
verify these statements. 

There are 459 words on this column, and there was, therefore, 
only one chance out of 459 that the numl)er of italic words would 
agree with the cjuotient obtained bv dividing 371 l)y c;3. 
For it will be seen that if Charles W'aine had been united by a 
hyphen, or if i^niine^ being the name of a thing, a wagon, had been 
printed in Roman letters, the count would not have agreed. 
Again, if the word Heii:;h-ho (the 190th word) had not been 
h3'phenated, or if Chamber-lye had been printed as two words, 
the word Bacon would not have been the 371st word. Or if 
the nineteenth word, infaifh, had been printed as two words, 
the count would have been thrown out. If our selves (the 
sixty-fourth and sixty-fifth words) had been run together as one 

' /.■.' Ilon-y IV., ii, i. 



.556 



THE CIPHER IX THE PLA T.^. 



word, as they often are, the word Bacon would have been the 370th 
word, and wouki not have matched ^^•ith the page. Where so 
many minute points liad to be considered, a change of any one of 
which would have thrown the count out, I regarded it as very 
remarkable that the significant word Bacon should be precisely 
seven times the number of the page. 

Still, standing alone, this might have liappened accidentally. 

I remembered, then, that other significant word, Saint Albans, 
in act iv, scene 2, page 67, column i. 

And the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host of .S'. Alboiifs. 

I counted the words • on that column, and the word S. Alboncs 
was the 402d W'ord. I again divided this total by the number of 
the page, 67, and the qiaotient was precisely 6. 

6 
402= " S. Albones." 

I counted up the italic words on this column, and I found there 
were just six, to-wit: (i) Bardolph, (2) Pete, (3) Lazarus, (4) Jack, 
(5) Hal, (6) John. 

This was certamly extraordinary. 

There were on that page 890 words. There was, therefore, but 
one chance out of <S9o that the significant word S. Alboncs would 
precisely match the page. But there was only one chance in 
many thousands that the two significant words Bacon and 
S. Alboncs would both agree precisely with the pages they were on; 
and not one chance in a hundred thousand that, in each case, the 
number of italics on the first column of the page would, when mul- 
tiplied by the page, produce in each case numbers equivalent to 
the rare and significant words Bacon and S. Alboncs. 

On the first colutTin of page 67 there are a great many words 
united by hyphens and counting as one word each, to-wit: Sut- 
ton-cop-hill, souccd-;.:;iirnct, niis-iiscd, housc-Jioldcrs, a struck-foolc (fowl), 
K'ild-di/ck, dis-cardcd, trade-fallen, dis-Jionorablc, old-faced, S7uinc-kecpiiii:^, 
skarc-crows. Here are thirteen hyphens. If there had been eleven, 
or twelve, or fourteen, the count w^ould not have matched. Some 
of these combinations are natural enough, as siinne-kccpini^, skarc- 
crmc's, etc., but some of the others are very forced. \Vhy print 
dishonorable, jnisuscd and discarded as two words each ? Why not 



THE GREAT FOLIO EDIT I OX OF i6jj. 557 

Stitton-cop hill? Wh}- link together all three of these words ? Does 
it not look like an ingenious cramming of words together so as to 
make the word ^V. Alboucs the 402d word ? 

And as there was but one chance in 890 that the significant 
word .v. Alboucs would be the multiple of the page, so, as a 
change of any one of these thirteen hyphens would have thrown 
out the count, there is but one chance out of thirteen times 890, or 
one out of elrccn thousaiul Jive hundred and seventy, that this could 
be the result of accident! 

I returned to page 53. I counted from the top of the first col- 
umn to the bottom, and there were 459 words; then from the top 
of the second column downward, and the first Nicholas was 
the 189th word; total, 648 words. I found that 648 was the precise 
result of multiplying 54, the next page, by 12: 



459 


54 




189 


12 




648 


108 
54 






648 = ' 


' Xiciini.AS." 



Now, if the reader will turn to the facsimile he will observe- 
that there are exactly twelve words in italics on the first column oi 

page 54 •' 

As seven times page 53 yielded the 371st word, Bacon, so I 
found that six times page 53 made 318; and that if I commenced 
to count from the top of the second subdivision of column one of 
page 55, that from there to the bottom of the column there are 
255 words, which, deducted from 318, leaves 62; and from the 
beginning of scene iv, 2d column, page 55, downward, the 62d 
word is the word Francis. 

Now, if you turn to page 54 and begin to count at the top of 
the subdivision of the scene, on the first column, caused by " Enter 
Gads-hill," counting in the first word, you will find there are to the 
top of the column 396 words; if, then, you count down to the word 
Bacons, you will find it the 198th word, — total, 594; and 594 is. 
precisely eleven times 54: 

396 54 

igS II 

594 54 
54 
594 = " Bacons." 



-58 TIIK CIPHER IX TffE PLAYS. 

And tlic fac-siiiiilc will show that there are precisely eleven 
words in italics from the top of the first column dowMi to " Enter 
Gads-hill.'" 

And if we commence to count from the end of scene 2, col- 
umn 2, page 54, backward and up the first column of the same, 
the 477th word is the word soii^ and 477 is precisely nine times 53. 

And so I had: 

53 X 6 = 318 = Francis ■ — 2nd column, page 55. 

53 X 7 = 371 = Bacon — ist column, page 53. 

54 X 12 = 648 = Nicholas — 2nd column, page 53. 
54X II = 594= Bacon's — 2nd column, page 54. 
53 X (; = 477 = SoN — ist column, page 54. 

All these things tended to make me more and more certain that 
there was a cipher in the Plays, and that it depended upon the 
paging of the Folio. 

I had observed, on page 67, how adroitly thirteen words were 
hyphenated to make .S'. Alboiics the exact multiple of the page. 
I began to study the hyphenation of words, and the way in which 
bracket sentences were formed in the body of the text, as I judged, 
to enable the author to make his cipher-count ma.tch. That this 
was the purpose I found many proofs. It is well understood that 
a parenthesis in brackets is a subordinate sentence, explanatory of 
the main sentence, but not essential to it. That is to say, the main 
sentence will read and make sense just as well without it as with 
it. If I say: 

At this time (the weather being pleasant), John came to see me, 

I have formed a correct sentence, which can be read with or 
without the parenthesis. But if I write: 

At this time, the weather (being pleasant), John came to see me, 
I have formed a sentence which without the words in brackets 
makes nonsense. 

If the reader will turn to the exact reprint of act iv, scene i of 
TJic Merrv Wives of ]\lndsor, he will find the following curious 
instances of bracketing words: 

What is {Fairc), William? 

What is {Lapis), William ? 

What is a stone ( William)-' 

What is the Focative case ( William)? • 

Never name her (childe). 

Leave your prables i^oman). F.tc. 



THE GREAT FOLIO EDITION OF 162 j. 



559 



In the first two instances the sentence, without the words in 
brackets, has no meaning. In the other, there is no reason in the 
world why the name, or designation of the person addressed, 
should be embraced in brackets. 

Again, on the first column of the same page, Falstaff says: 

Adieu! >ou shall have her (Master Broome); Master Broome, you shall cuck- 
old Ford. 

Now, if there was any typc~)graphical reason for putting one of 
these Master Broomes in brackets, why was not the other simi- 
larly treated ? 

Multitudinous instances of the same kind can be found in the 
Folio. 

If the use of brackets was uniform, we might consider it a habit 
of the writer, or a vice of the printers of that era; but such is not 
the case. 

It is well known that the 2d Henry IV. is but a continuation of 
the 1st Henry IV. The latter ends with the death of Hotspur on 
the field of Shrewsbury; the other opens with Hotspur's father 
receiving the news of his death. The characters in the two plays 
are the same; the plot is the same; the two are practically one. 
Yet we find in the ist Henry IV. the brackets used very sparingly, 
while in the 2d Henry /T'. the pages are literally peppered w^ith 
them. There are nine pages in the ist Henry IV. that do not con- 
tain a bracket word, to-wit, pages 54, 57, 61, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72; 
while there is not one page in the 2d Henry IV. which does not 
contain words in brackets. In the last ten pages of the ist Henry 
IV. there are but seven words in brackets, while in the first ten 
pages of 2d Hemy IV. there are three hundred and fifty-nine! 

Take the following sentence, in the speech of the King, on page 
85 of 2d Henry /T'., and observe the ridiculous extent to which 
brackets are used, where there was really no necessity for them: 

But which of you was by, 
(You cousin Nevil, as I may remember), 
When Richard, with his eye brim-full of Teares, 
(Then checked and rated by A'orthuinho-land) 
Did speak these words (now prov'd a prophecy): 
Northumberland thou Ladder, by the which 
My cousin Biilliiii^brookt' ascends my Throne: 
(Though then, Heaven knows, I had no such intent, 
Rut that necessity so bowed the State 



^60 T.HE CIPHER IN THE PIA VS. 

That I and Greatnesse were compelled to kisse:) 
The Time shall come (thus did bee follow it), 
The Time will come that foul Sinne gathering head 
Shall breake into Corruption. 

Here we have a sentence, containing ninety-three wo/ds, of 
which forty-six are in brackets, and forty-seven not in l)rackets I 
And scarcely one of these bracketings is necessary. 

Now when you remember that there are nine pages in the ist 
Hcmv IV. without a bracket word, and ten consecutive pages with 
but seven, is it natural or reasonable to find here, in a continuation 
of the same play, forty-six bracket words out of a total of ninety- 
three? Must there not have been some reason for it ? 

Compare these totals: 

Total bracket words. Total hyphenated words. 

1st Henry IV Ill 224 

2d Ilcnry IV 89S 307 

Why should there be more than eight times as many bracket 
Avords in the second part of what is practically one play as there is 
in the first part ? 

Now all these evidences were, as I have said before, cumulative; 
they all pointed in the same direction. If I find in the sand the 
tracks of many feet, directed to all points of the compass, I cannot 
predicate what direction the multitude took, or meant to take. 
But if I come across numerous tracks all pointing in the same 
direction, I can reasonably conclude that those who owned those 
feet moved toward the point so indicated; and if I find the tracks 
of a vast multitude, with every foot pointed to the north, and the 
ground trampled and cut by artillery wheels, and the herbage 
crushed, and the limbs of the very trees torn down, I should be a 
fool indeed if I doubted my own senses, and failed to conclude that 
an army had juissed there and was marching northward. 

And so this accumulation of testimonies forced me, in despite 
of all doubts and hesitations, to the fixed and positive belief that 
the text of some of the Shakespeare Plays, perhaps all of them, 
contained cipher-work. 

To be sure, it took me some time to reason out how the book 
could have been printed so as to make the paging match with the 
cipher story; and the conclusion I reached was this: That Bacon, 
Vv-hcn he resolved to tell, in this secret manner, the history of 



THE GREAT FOLIO EDITION OF 162J. 561 

his life and his era, and had selected his own short acting plays, in 
their first brief form, for the web into which he would weave his 
story (for we find The Merry Wives, Henry V., Romeo and Juliet, Ham- 
let and other plays still existing in that original form, without the 
significant cipher words), determined that some day he would 
publish his cipher-plays in foiio volume; and the cipher was con- 
structed altogether with that end in view. To insert the cipher he 
had to double the size of the original plays; and this is the reason 
we have them " enlarged to as much again," as is stated in the pre- 
face to some of the quarto editions. 

Now then, Ricliard II. having ended on page 45 (and probably 
Richard II. and King John constitute jointly a cipher narrative, 
united, just as we will see hereafter that the ist and 2d He/irv IV. 
are united), he then made his calculation that the ist Henry IV. 
would occupy twenty-eight pages and this would make the first 
X>A'g^ oi 2d Henry IV. page 74. Upon this basis he worked; for it 
is my impression that those coincidences I have just shown, of 
Francis — Bacon — Niciiolas — Bacon's — son, are either parts of a 
cipher different from that which I have worked out, or that they 
have no relation to the cipher proper, but were put there to lead 
some subsequent investigator along to the conviction that there 
was a cipher in the Plays. And I should conclude that Bacon 
made a mistake in his estimate, and that the ist Henry IV., when 
finished, contained but twenty-six pages. Hence he was driven 
to the expedient of dropping two pages, or one leaf, out of the 
count; and, hence, in the Folio, page 49 follows page 46. 

But, having settled upon page 74, he begins his work. He 
writes his text on the basis of the equivalent in words of what he 
thinks each column of the Folio, when printed, will contain, using 
either large sheets or two sheets bearing the same number. For 
instance, the first column of page 74 contains 294 words. These 
could be readily written on one sheet of paper; and the same is 
true of the second column, which contains 270 words. When he 
comes to page 75, the first column of which contains 468 words 
and the second 541, if he had not single sheets large enough for 
these he used two or more, giving them the same paging, as, for 
instance, 75' or 75 \ etc. The number of words on a column was 
largely dependent on the necessities of the cipher; hence, we will 



562 THE CIPHER IX THE FLA VS. 

find three hundred and odd words on one column, and six hundred 
and odd on another. Let the reader turn to our fac-similcs, and 
compare the second column of page 76 with the second column of 
page 80. Both are in prose, and each contains one break in the 
narrative, caused by the entrance of characters. Yet the first has 
615 words, while the other contains 553 words. And, to get the 
615 words into the second column of page 76, the type had to be 
crowded together very closely, and w-e have the words, "Doth not 
the King lack subjects?" printed (as the reader will see, by look- 
ing near the bottom of the column) thus: 

Doth not the K. lack subjects? 

On the second column of page 64 of ist Henry IV., all in prose, 
and containing also one break, there are but 472 words; while on 
the first column of page 62 of the same play, all in prose, with 
three interruptions, there are but 375 words. There could as well 
have been 500 words printed on that column as 375. But we will 
see, as we proceed, that the necessity the cryptologist was under 
to use the same significant words more than once (counting from 
the bottom of the column up, as well as from the top of the col- 
umn down) determined the number of the words on the column; 
even though he had to print King as simply A'., to get them all in, 
in the one case; or to put in such phrases as the following, heavily 
leaded, in the other case, as on page 64: 

Enter the Prince niarc/ii?7g, and Falstaffe nieeis 

him playing on his Tritnchion 

like a Fife, 

Compare this with the first column of page 79, where a similar 
stage direction has not even a separate line given it, but is crowded 
in at the end of a sentence, thus: 

Page. Away you Scullion, you Rampallion, you Fustil- 
lirian: He tucke your Catastrophe. Enter Ch. Justice. 

Here the writer did not allow everi room enough to print the 
word Chief in full. 

Now, having the Plays written on sheets, and so paged as to 
correspond with a prospective Folio, Bacon was in this dilemma: 
If he did not print the Plays during Shakspere's life-time, with the 
cipher in them, and Shakspere's name on the title-page, men would 



THE GREAT FOLIO EDITION OF 1623. t^^T^ 

say in the future, as they have said recently, that the Plays were 
really Shakspere's, and that he (Bacon) had stolen them and inter- 
jected a cipher claiming them. And so he published some of them 
in quarto. But as the paging of the quarto would begin with page 
I, while the cipher was founded on page 74, or page 69 (as in 
Henry V.), or page 79 (as in Troilus and Cressida), it was absolutely 
impossible to decipher the inner story. But, to make assurance 
doubly sure, Bacon cut out of the quarto whole sentences that 
were in the Folio sheets, and set into the text of the quarto sen- 
tences and whole scenes that were not in the Folio; so that the 
most astute decipherer could have made nothing out of it, how- 
ever cunningly he might have worked. And this is the explana- 
tion of the fact that while the editors of the Folio of 1623 assure 
the public that it is printed from " the true originall copies," and 
that all previous quarto editions were " stolne and surreptitious 
copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injuri- 
ous impostors that expos'd them;" and that the Folio copies were 
^''perfect of their limbs and absolute in their numbers, as he (Shake- 
speare) conceived them," nevertheless, the publisher of Shake- 
speare to-day has to go to these same very much denounced quartos 
for many of the finest passages' which go by the name of the great 
poet. 

And here is another curious fact: Bacon was not content to 
publish the Plays during the life of Elizabeth and his keen-eyed 
cousin, Cecil, with a different paging; but where the word Bacon 
occurred, in the quartos, it is printed with a small b, so as not 
to arouse suspicion, instead of with a capital B, as in the Folio ! 
And most of those curious bracketings and hyphenations which so 
mar the text of the great Folio, like ^'' smooth-comforts-false" etc., are 
not to be found in the quartos. 

One can fancy Francis Bacon sitting at the play — in the 
background — with his hat over his eyes — watching Elizabeth 
and Cecil, seated, as was the custom, on the stage, enjoying 
and laughing over some merry comedy, little dreaming that the 
internal fabric of the play told, in immortal words, all the dark- 
est passages of their own dark lives — embalmed in the midst of 
wit and rollicking laughter, for the entertainment of all future 
ages. And so the long-suffering and much abused genius enjoyed 



564 THE CIPHER IN THE PLAYS. 

his revenge, even under the very nose (if power; so he rose 

superior to 

The law"s delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
Which patient merit of the un\vf)rthy takes. 

And when the time came to " put the alphabet in a frame " all 
he had to do was to have Condell and Heminge contract with the 
printers to print the Folio in columns, precisely as ordered, Bacon 
himself secretly correcting the proofs. Or Bacon may have bought 
the type and had it printed at Gray's Inn, or St. Albans, or at the 
house of Condell or Heminge. If printers were told to follow copy 
precisely, and put exactly as many words on a column as there 
were on a sheet of the original manuscript, they would, of course, 
do so; and only in this way can the extraordinary features of the 
Folio of 1623 be accounted for. And if the printers needed a reason, 
to allay suspicion, it could be given in the pretended reverence of 
the actor-editors for the work of " their worthy friend and fellow, 
Shakespeare; " for it follows, of course, that Heminge and Condell, 
or one, at least, of them, was in the secret of the real authorship. 

And this also explains why one-half the Plays were not pub- 
lished until 1623, and why for nearly twenty years so few were put 
forth. The author could never know how far suspicion might be 
aroused by the curiously garbled state of the text. But in 1623 
the generation that had witnessed the production of the Plays was 
mostly dead; Burleigh and Cecil and the Queen were all gone; and 
Bacon himself was nearing the last mile-stone of his wonderful 
career. There was but little risk of discovery in the few years that 
remained to him between 1623 and the grave. 

The great Folio was the culmination of Bacon's life-work as re- 
garded one portion of his mighty intellect; even as the De Aiigmeii- 
tis and the Novum O rgani/iii were the culmination of his life-work 
as to the other side — his philosophy. And side by side, at the 
same time, he erected these great pillars, the one as worthy, as 
enduring, as world-sustaining as the other. 



CHAPTER V. 

LOST IN THE WILDERNESS. 

I'olonius. What do you read, my lord ? 
Ilanilet. Words, words, words. 

H mil let y ii, 2. 

HAVING satisfied myself, in this way, that, beyond question, 
there was a cipher narrative in the Shakespeare Plays, I 
commenced the task of deciphering it. It has been an incalcula- 
ble labor, reaching through many weary years. 

I had but one clue: that the cipher words were to some extent 
the multiples of the pages on which they occur. But the problem 
was, In what order do they follow each other? What is the 
sequence of arrangement ? 

My first conception of the cipher narrative was that of a brief 
statement of the fact that Francis Bacon was the real author of the 
Plays. The words constituting this sentence might, I thought, be 
widely scattered, and but two or three to a play. On page 84 I 
found the word William. 

I dare say my cousin William is become a good SchoUer.' 

In the subdivision above this, in the same column, being the end 
of act iii, scene 2, there were three hyphenated words, and thirty- 
five words in brackets. If you deduct 3 from 86 it leaves 83, and 
on page 83 we find: 

Feele, Masters, how I shake. * 
If you deduct 35 from 87, the next column, it leaves 52, and on 
page 52 we have : 

The uncertain footing of a Spcare. 

Here, I thought, I have a clue: — Williajii Shakespeare. But, 
unfortunately, the rule would carry me no farther. 

Then I was perplexed as to the true mode of counting. Was I 
to analyze words into their meaning and count them accordingly? 
Was zc'hafs, as in "what's the matter," one word or two words, 

"^ 2d Henry //'., iii, 2. "^ 2d Henry /?'., ii, 4. 

5^5 



566 THE CIPHER IN THE PLA YS. 

"what is"? Was otJi clock, one word, two words or three words?' 
Was tJi other to be counted as two words, as "the other," or as one 
word, "t'other"? Were the figures loo to be counted as one word, 
or as "one hundred," two words ? 

As I was working in the dark, it was a long time before I 
arrived at Bacon's purpose, and then I found that he adopted the 
natural rule, that the typographical consideration governed, and a 
word was a group of letters, separated by spaces from the rest of 
the text, whether it meant one, or two' or a dozen objects. The 
only exception seems to be where the word is merely slurred to 
preserve the rhythm of the blank verse, as in: 

Had three times slain th' appearance of the king.' 

Here the ///' is counted as a separate word. At different stages I 
was led, by coincidences, to adopt one theory and then the other, and 
I recounted and numbered the words from time to time, until the 
text was almost obliterated with the repeated markings. I give 
herewith one page, page 79, of 2d Henry IV.,"^ which will show the 
defaced condition of my facsimile, and at the same time give some 
idea of the difficulty of the work. 

Many times I struck upon clues which held out for two or 
three points and then failed me. I was often reminded of our 
Western story of the lost traveler, whose highway changed into 
a wagon-road, his wagon-road disappeared in a bridle-path, his 
bridle-path merged into a cow-path, and his cow-path at last de- 
generated into a squirrel track, which ran up a tree ! So my hopes 
came to naught, many a time, against the hard face of inflexible 
arithmetic. 

I invented hundreds of ciphers in trying to solve this one. 
Many times I was in despair. Once I gave up the whole task for 
two days. But I said to myself: There is certainly a cipher ' e; 
and what the ingenuity of man has made, the ingenuity of ^x\ 
ought to be able to unravel. 

My own preconceptions often misled me. Believing that eacli 
cipher word belonged to the page on which it was found, I did not 
look beyond the page. 

At last, in my experimentations, I came across the word vol- 
ume. 

'^sd Henry //'., ii, i; 2d col., p. 75, Folio. ^ Act ii, scene i. 



/ 






I -iiirf'i1 BM(i i iV' iii iii" i niirirVT; ii °"''' """'"'"' ■ '"<' '""",.„«.>fr,r- 






S^ 



a' 






"> 



.^ 

'^^H 



j^ 



3f" 



Xj^ 




a? 

X 
3^ 



/'}' 



/SO- 



TheffcondTart o/Kjng HenTy t he Fo urth. 

ml V*rfl. 

f/aff.Wt are Times rubie<3s.>iulTinie biil:,^? 



Aad t>kc thou this (O chouehctofmea accuri'J) 
" P^^itt Camt, fttiml^; ihktgs frtftm v<n-fl. , ,^ 
Affw, Shall wegodrtwpuroumbcTMiW Tci on ? 



Giice 



rej^un a pootc widdow ortaftcheap, and ti 
•trt!y fuit. 



rgon. 



j/l 



A3us Secunc/us. Scoena'^nma. 



Enrer Hifirfi,Biiihlim>Officeri r.vig, iKiiSntre. /j 

HtiieJIiM Mr.f''»g,baucyoueniredihcA£tion?y()/^ 

Ftr-g. ifi^eoietd. \ ^ 

HiDiclfr. \vheO youi Yeoman/ 1» it a luflyyeomam 

»jll he (land to it ? \-^^>^"i 

^Tixg. Sirrah, y hetj't Snt re ? /p QO^ 

F«>^. 5n<»-f,yvcniuftflTreflSir^^'f<i(Ji?ii(fi|j2 
ie'ciit«ohini.i«ji 



«fi>/J.^jDh my mofl worftiipfijll Lord.ind'tpleafeyour 
r ofEaftcheap, and he »lTi^| 
j^jg Ci. /»^. For what fumffTe? 
«»/?. It u tnoK then-fbr fome(a)y Loid)iti» fotaJI:aU 
fnuc.Wi'tiith eJlerttte out of houfe andhiome', hSIrilh 
poiall iliy fubftancc into thitfat belly'^hRT bui'^ All 
hate feme of it out againc, OTi will t i J^ftl A o 
.IkiitheMSe.,, A *^ ™ ■'^\-^ ^ 

^»lfi. fWinki^ am at likcjo tide the ^Si, if 
anj.vantage of^tOH pd^t o ger^C - -iA.,^_=_^^ 
'^^'tl ^"^ JoW^s'wft>i^nlgBryiiy,^hat a man ^ 
goijienlper wojWVndurethutempcftot'kxclamation^ 
/r /ofrftjc af^ri^d to inforct a poore W|ildowc to fo 



yi-. , ->frftoc afnffn'd to inforcc a poore W)ildow< 
' ^digh a ^crailcuo come hy her ownc i 
/^r^/y^'SVhal u1Fc groffcfeftWif that 1 o»st thee? 



H'P. 1 goodM.^iKD-r.Ihauecni 
5o.It may fhaoccjcollfomco^sou' 



I g 0- '-"^^^i^'AlIs iht_^y; taTcTlfoedofwW : he fta 
in oune owne houfe^gd th«fflflft bcilily: he car 
ifTOj weapon be out. 



m. 



\ 'ic 






aU. 

Vil ft. 
heftahdM 

whatmifchecfehed^.ifWr^eaponbeout. Hcewili f-*# 
foyne like any diucll.^rwalfpaie neither man, woman, IjJ-S')";' 

norchiidc'jti^* ' .V^'T^^i^^' 

F.giyr Tf T^ O clofe with him.I care not for his tl>ful\^ 

.^-fiafifc. Jvttiior I neither ; He beat yoiir^elFow. 'jj^ 

Tang, in bft tiff hiai once;if"he come bTR within ffj 

Vic. ^ d. ^ ^ 

H'fl. I am Tndone with hij *oingn wjHant Kjf is an 
inhnitiiiethingjrpon^mylcorc.^epd M fWjholdhim 
luffigood SI i»4W letfeuiWiafc, he c'o'mes coiuuiu- 
antly w Py-Corner(fauiiig y&St f3«nhoods)to buy^ fiu 
die, feihee is indited to ilinnet to the Lubbjts head: 
LqtiAardfticei.to M-Smcethei the Silkman.I pra'ye^ce<* 
ijK Emon isenter'd.and my Caft^ ogjihly ki#wn pRhe 
«5rld.let him be brouoht in to l^nf^er: A Ao Mitki 




^A?ia"'' '''*'°" Wednefday i/i Whufon wrtt*^ 



itjfVfllge broke thy head for li'k'ning higit87l' 
5 itiah of Wmd/or;Tbou_didft fwrare tori^rWS(^ 



then, and calmc godip <'B3 

on nrfirc'^ 




44jJ «ijrld,let him be brought in to ff^nlwer: A t do Mitlic 
T^l it a lor^ ohejbijjf prote lone women to beare: & 1 ha 
I borne ■^ bwnftrfifbomc, and haue bin fub'ifoff, and 
I -^ i'ar.%._ .u?, J .„ ^.„ rW.r'rRlf rhaii^f , ,. 

bVchouEhl'o.i. ; "ere_is tK. no^flyMlJb^e^ngA"'' 
a woman iKouia o£ma4f;an7aR--?8tf""> '° *•"" ' 
ucry Knaueswtongi.^ £«rr A;/;:;.- — ' ''~*'"^> 
Yotiaet^coflies, aiS thayriant Malnicfey-Nofc i'*/- 
'Uo//> w{th>SqiJ5o'fp^t^fftts,d5your oftceSiM^.^*!^ 



id^m^ Ihy-j^oundjf^artyli^d mike itJe<- my 
I'/ ''V ^"'" V"'P''Ja''^^"* " "^"f "Of goodwife 
' ^a^'"-^j<>ife?ofre in then, and calmc godm i 
(f onimin^^n c6 biftrow a fTiefTeofVincoar,- 

ft" Mdgo4ddifhofPrawnes:whcieby 
e.t ibine : whereby I to 

W ind?Anddidftiiotthou (whenfKe^«j 
^(».le$)dS?re.mfr^^o more familiar VJith luchpoore 
•^pt f.lc.f>yln5,^#^ lone they (hould call ntcMadam ? 
^'•A. ! did ft;ynoT!si(reme;and bid mee fetch th"^^, . 

, c no* lo thy B6ok-oath,d#y it'lSKd'/filutt^"'*; : 
My Lord.this is a pfeore road tW^a"^ ftie fayts 
V, v'downcibtfewn (hi^^^ldeftf^hlikc 



ai 1 f>tn ID »o6d cafc^ ilfl^idih it.po fety haih'^ il^ " 
»r I Her »Ti6t lor thf fe foolj(*,Sffrcers. I befeechilO! f 




hiuetedteffe/gainRthem.,^ .-^t^.: -^^ 

' Sir /«A«,rii j«A».ram well icqoiime j ^i^i yoS^ 

■-.I'^hinn th»lti)F.-5.if. ,Hi. Clf. ...ft, t?:._5. 
brow, nof 

mcK 




lie tlKow rnie thett/ 

oUt ih ou/thou baftardly rogCc.Muftier.'nJ^r- 



Fw, 
Fa/fi. 
Villaincs head: thfow the Que 

Wo/? Jhrmw me in the channel 
Wijjthau?wdti . „ . 

1^^ tfiouHoiiyi(ucklc vUlaine.wilt thou kill Gods ol'- 

flctr^'afl the Kingsi" "Q thMhony.ftod Rogue, thou art 

al^;^<ft**an-quenef,a^« woman-aucller, « i . 

7V|?. Keep them off,B«rifo^ F<wjJ[j|efcu,^re(^; 

'* i/^/?. Good people bring a tcfcu.ThouwJit nSftthou. 

— . . - Dot^'HilSiSi-'^ . 

^fflpallian, you Furtil- 



wiktioi? Dojdo^ou Rogue 

f4^f.Awa7yS "Scullion. you^S 
lirian; He tuUtf /dur Ca tafl tophr, # 
Ju/f. WK«'5tlienijttef?Keepeth( 
Ht/i. Goto my L6d be good to 
ffandtoorfA ^ 

l^/<^ Hownov» fir /•*/»? WhaUfi 
t>3ih thi^ttome your pJacc.youtUmc 
^fi^jjhojpd haue bene well oo yout way 
Stand !f^ him Fellow {wherefore hang" 



• ^■'^''.ii^hinp tht 

>.nibrow, i)ofTheii,rong«fwo(<ffci, tli^come If^" *' 
^ "ro"theni'm^udent)fawefn(sfiomy6i',^SiT "^ 
- "iy ""^ * ''"^i°l'ii'^eiaji°!lJ ghow 7>jif^' 
it: I d vpai jhe ealie-yeelHing Ip 

y<>/'••^ *< in ti^h rt^ Lord, . '*< 



ipra- 



ly.You tall hd»fe^j|Soldnes,ii,. 
If: mj^ wilcurtfie^dfiy nothing,1il 



Sit: 



< -3 



T^m 



("JSit Saw cinelTe: 

"j/ L •. . A e."J&^rtu^u$: No, 

"d(yourhumble<%rfmebretCf>vv,llJ;beyW- 
(it^.l&ytSyoiiJdrfirc^g^ccfc- ^^^fg'j^ 

"Vp^")'*^/ emp^oyrnen^m thTKitTos /CwSreS — j 
'*/., 7<5u Ipeakcif hauing poWer to'So wrong : Bin ^ 
an wer in th) cfEftk^yout Reputation, and fausfte the 

■pore WothinJ ''*' ~"ij3 ^— -^ --—■ 

.'Jtf. Qjmehi^Hoftefle^^^ \^ij*rM;t<5»n: 
:*./«!#. No*M«fterCn»<r: Whai^liT^ 
if £n/fr. Q^ /*^c^ ; ^^ Jow.Tbe Km^mvLord) and Htntie Ptliice ^ Wtlet 
e Peace here, hoa^ jf Aii:'neete^h^ny ;^[fe reft the Papertell/i 
Tbefcechyou \r,, Vtlfi. Asj am aGJiitlemari? 
}ftft, /Nay,you/aul !« before' 
• f*l. As rim a^ " 

faiKctopawoe 
ningChimbeiT.' „j 














AO 



a^*) 






&- V 






"i^i^ 



n> 



■> 



■i-.-Oi 



/ 



r»^ 



LOST IN THE WILDERNESS. 567 

Yea, this man's brow, like to a Title-leafe, 
Fore-tels the nature of a Tragicke Volume.^ 

I said to myself, if Bacon tells the story of the authorship of 
the Plays, he would be very likely to refer to this volume, or a volume. 
I counted the words. Volume was the 208th word on the first 
column counting from the top. I could not make 208 in any way 
the multiple of the page, 75. At a venture I added the total 
number of words on the preceding column, 248, to it, making 
456. This, also, would not fit to page 74 or 75. Again I experi- 
mented. I added the total on the first column of page 74, 284 
words. The sum then stood: 

On the first column of page 74 284 

On the second column of page 74 248 

On the first column of page 75 208 

Total 740 = ' ' VOLUME. ' 

I divided 740 by seventy-four, the number of the page on which 
the count commenced, and I had exactly te/i ! 

74X10=740. 
And there were ten words in brackets on the first column of 
page 74! 

Here was a revelation. I noticed the significant word mask 

in the same context with volume: 

Northumberland. Yea, this man's brow, like to a Title-leafe, 

Fore-tels the Nature of a Tragicke Volume: 

So lookes the Strond when the Imperious Flood 

Hath left a witnest Usurpation. 

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? 

Morton. I ran from Shrewsbury (my Noble Lord), 
Where hateful death put on his ugliest Mas/ce 
To fright our party. 

Note the artificial character of the language, "a witnessed 
usurpation" — why witnessed 2 Again: Why would death put on a 
mask ? Is not the bare death's-head terrible enough ? A mask 
would subdue its horrors. 

I labored, over mask. I said to myself, Shakespeare was Bacon's 
mask. I could not match it with 74 or 75. At length, after 
much experimentation, this question occurred to me: Why 
might not the cipher run up the columns as well as down? I 

' 2d Henry 11'., i, i. 



568 



THE CIPHER IN THE PLAYS. 



shrank from the proposition, as I did from every suggestion which 
increased the complexity of the work; but at length I went to 
experimenting. 

I first discovered a curious fact, that while the tenth word 
from the top of a column was, of course, the tenth word, you 
could not obtain the tenth word from the bottom of a column 
by deducting ten from the total of words on that column. If 
the reader will turn to the fac-sifnile, given herewith, on page 
75, he will see that there are 447 words on the first column. 
If now he deducts ten from 447, the result is 437, to-wit, the 
word doing; but this is really not the tenth word from the 
bottom, for if he starts to count each word (skipping the two 
words in brackets), he will find that the tenth word is jne^ the 
next subsequent word to xioing. Thus: (i) gainsaid, (2) be, 
(3) ^'^ (4) great, (5) too, (6) are, (7) you, (8) 7vrong, (9) such, 
(10) me. The reader will therefore find, in accordance with 
this rule, that wherever I count /// a column in these pages, I 
deduct the number from the total of the column and add one, 

thus: 

447 
10 

437+1 = 438 

If now we apply this rule, and add together the words on the 
two columns of page 74, viz., 284-1-248 = 532, and deduct 532 from 
740, we have left 208. We have seen that the 208th word from the 
top was the word volume. Now let us count 208 words up the 

same column: 

447 
208 
23g+ I = 240 

The 240th word is mask! If the reader doubts my accuracy, let 
him count up the column for himself. 

This might be a coincidence, but repeated experimentations 
proved that it was not, and that the cipher goes up as well as 
down the columns. 

Now, if we regard the first word of the first column of the first 
page as the starting-point of these words, we have the words 7>ol- 
ume and mask radiating out from that first word and going 
forward, the one down, the other up the column. Now let us start 



LOST /A' THE WILDERNESS. 569 

from this same first word, and count backivard until we reach the 
740th word: 

On second column of page 73 there are 237 words 

On first column of page 73 there are 169 " 

Total on page 406 ' ' 

If we deduct 406 from 740 the remainder is 334. The 334th 
word on the next column (second of page 72) is therefore. If we 
count up the column we have: 

Total words on column 58S 

Deduct 334 

254+1 = 255 
The 255th word is image. 

Now let us commence again at the top of the first column of 

page 74, and count down that column, and backward, until we 

reach the 740th word. We have: 

First column of page 74 284 words 

Second column of page 73 237 " 

First column of page 73 169 

690 " 

If we deduct this 690 from 740 the remainder is 50. The fiftieth 
word down the next column is but. Let us count the fiftieth word 
up the column, thus: 

Total 588 

Deduct 50 

538+ 1 = 539 
The 539th word is own. 

If we commence at the top of the first column of page 75 we 

have: 

10X74 = 740 

On first column, page 75 447 

Remainder . . 293 

The 293d word is his. Up the column it is the 2i5-i6th word, 
greatest. We found that the words mask and volume were the 208th 
words on that column. The 208th word on the first column of 
page 74 is wrath. 

After a long time, by a great deal of experimentation, I discov- 
ered that the count runs not only from the beginnings and ends of 
acts, scenes and columns, but also from the beginnings and ends 
of such subdivisions of scenes as are caused by the stage direc- 
tions, such as "Enter Morton," "Enter Falstaff,'-' "A retreat is 
sounded," " Exit Worcester and Vernon." " Falstaff riseth up," etc. 



\_ 



570 TBE CIPHER IN THE PLAYS. 

If now we count the first subdivision of the first column of page 
75, we will find it contains 193 words. If we start at the last word 
of the 193 and count upward and down the next column, we will 
lack thirty-nine of 740, thus: 

In subdivision first column, page 75 193 words. 

Second column, page 75 508 " 

701 " 
Remainder 39 " 

74^ " 

The thirty-ninth word from the top of the second column of 
page 75 is the word a. Now le^ us count thirty-nine up the next 
column (first column of page 76), thus: 

498 

39 

459+1 = 460 
The 460th word is said. 

We have seen that after counting the whole of page 74 (532), 
we needed 208 to make up 740, and that the 208th words yielded 
volume, mask and 7vrath. If we take that remainder, 208, 
and commence to count forward from the beginning of scene 4, 
page 73, column 1, we will find that the 208th word is slwivii, the 
129th word on the 2d column of page 73. Again, if w^e com- 
mence at the same starting-point — the beginning of scene 4 — and 
count up, w^e find ninety words, which, deducted from 208, leaves 
118; if now we count down the next column (2 of 72), we find that 
the ii8th word is a, while, if we count up, from the top of the 
second subdivision in the column (171st word), the 11 8th word is 
(53-)-! = 54) the word hide; while if we count down from the same 
point, the beginning of scene 4, page 73, there are 79 words; these 
being deducted from 208, it leaves 129: and the 129th word, 
counted down from the same 171st word, makes 300, the word 
prove; and up from the bottom of the next subdivision, 346, it 
makes (21 7 + 1 = 218) the w^ord counterfeit, which was used in 
that age for picture. Thus Bassanio says, on opening the casket, 
and finding therein Portia's miniature: 

What find I here? 
Fair Portia's counterfeit? What demi-god 
Hath come so near creation?' 

' Merchant of Venice, iii, 2. 



\- 



LOST IN THE IVILDEKXESS. 



57^ 



If we again take that remainder, 208, and begin to count from 
the top of the fourth scene, ist column of page 73, then we have 
208 — 90 = 118, as before; and this, carried up the next column, yields 
588— 118 = 470+1=471, Percy. 

If we now arrange these words together in some kind of 
order, we have Percy — said — /;/ — greatest — wrath — prove — image 
s,,07c>u — nJ>o;f — /lis — volume — hut — a — counterfeit — mask — hide 
my — otvn. 

But near the word volume, as I have shown, is the word title-leaf 
and near the but is the word face (57th word, 2d column of page 
72), so that we can imagine a sentence reading something like this: 
Percy said he was in a state (134 — 2, 75) of the greatest ivrath, and 
would prove that the counterfeit image shojun upon the title-leaf of his 
volume is Intt a mask to hide ny own face. 

I said to myself: Although this interpretation may not be cor- 
rect, it is certainly surprising that such a concatenation of signifi- 
cant words should all be produced by finding the 740th word 
from points of departure clearly related and coherent; for in every 
case the count is from the beginning or end of page 74. 

Then I observed that if we multiplied 74 by 12 instead 
of 10, the result was 888; and if we commenced to count from 
the top of the first column of page 72, the result was 494, 
total on first column of page 72; this, deducted from 888, leaves 394,- 
which is the very significant word plays. Then I said to myself, 
Volume oi plays. Do the multipliers of 74 alternate? 

This led to making a series of tables of all the words produced 
by multiplying 74, 75 and 76, the three pages embraced in scene 1 
of act i of 2d He my /J\, and a comparison of these revealed the 
following startling facts, which forever put an end to any doubts 
that might still linger in my mind as to the existence of a cipher 
in the Plays. 

If we multiply the last page in the scene, page 76, by 11, the 
number of bracket words on the first column of page 74 (count- 
ing the hyphenated word post-horse as two words), the result 
is, 76 X 11 = 836. 

Now, if we commence at the beginning of column i, page 74, 
and count forward to the 836th word, excluding bracket words and 
counting hyphenated words as one word, we have: 



572 THE CIPHER EV THE PLAYS. 

On page 74 532 

In first column page 75 304 

Total 836 

The 304th word in the first column of page 75 is the word 

found. 

If now we start from the top of the ?iext page, page 75, and 

again count to the 836th word, in the same way, excluding the 

bracket words and counting the hyphenated words as single words, 

we have the following: 

On first column page 75 447 

On second column page 75 389 

Total 836 

The 389th word is out 

Here we have the combination " found out " — by the satne count 
from the beginning of two consecutive pages. This is remarkable; but 
it might be accidental. But here comes the astonishing feature of 
the discovery, which could not be accidental: 

If you multiply 75, the number of the second page of the scene, 
by 12, the number of words in italics on the first column of page 
74, the result is 900. 

We found that the 304th word, found, on the first column of 
page 75, was the 836th word from the beginning of page 74, exclud- 
ing the bracket words and counting the hyphenated words as 
single words. How would it be if we counted in the bracket words 
and counted the hyphenated words as separate words ? Let us see: 

The word found is the 836th word. 

Bracket words, first column, page 74 10 

Bracket words, second column, page 74 22 

Bracket words, first column, page 75, preceding /(?//«^/ 13 — 45 words. 

Hyphenated words, additional, first column, page 74 8 

Hyphenated words, additional, second column, page 74 . . . 2 
Hyphenated words, first column, page 75, preceding /<?//««'. 9 — 19 words. 

900 

That is to say ''found" is the 836th woi-d (11X76 = 836) from 
the beginning of page 74, exclusive of the bracket words and the 
hyphenated words counted as single words; and it is the 900th 
word (12X75 = 900) counting in the bracketed words and the 
hyphenated words as separate words ! 



LOST IN THE WILDERNESS. 573 

Again: we found that the 389th word, on the second cohimn of 

page 75, was also the 836th word. 

The word cut 836 words. 

Bracket words, on first column, page 75 21 

Bracket words, on second column, page 75, preceding out.. 30 — 51 words. 

Hyphenated words, first column, page 75 9 

Hyphenated words, second column, page 75, preceding out . 4 — 13 words. 

900 

And again we find that the word "out" is the 836th word 
(11X76 = 836) from the beginning of page 75, less the bracketed 
words, and counting the hyphenated words as one word each; and 
it is the 900th word (12 X 75=900), counting in the bracketed words 
and the hyphenated words double ! 

In other words: 

The sum total of bracket words and hyphens, between the top 
of the first column of page 74 and the word '' found," is 64, and 
this is precisely the difference between 836 and 900 I 

And the sum total of bracket words and hyphens between the 
top of the first column of page 75 and the word " out " is again 
64; and this is precisely the difference between 836 and 900 ! 

How is this result obtained ? By the most carefid and delicate 

adjustment of the words, like the elements of a profound puzzle. 

The difference between 836 ■=. found out., and 900 z=i found out, is, I 

say, the precise number of the bracketed and hyphenated words in 

each case. If these had varied one word in the four columns, it 

would have thrown the count out ! And it is easy to see how the 

text was forced to get in the precise number of these words. At 

the bottom of the first column of page 74 we have: 

From Rumours tongues, 
They bring smooth-Comforts-false worse than True-wrongs. 

Who ever heard of "smooth-comforts-false" being run together 

into one word ? Only the necessities of the cipher could have 

justified such a violation of sense. And what a pounding together 

of meaning was required to make "true-wrongs"! Again, we 

have, — as the 181st word, — first column, page 75 : 

That had stolne 
The horse he rode-on. 

"Rode on " are as clearly two words as "the horse." 
Again we have, 244th word, first column, page 74: 



574 



THE CIPHER IN THE FLA YS. 



This worm-eaten-Hole of ragged stone. 

"Worm-eaten" might be hyphenated, but surely not "worm- 
eaten-hole." 

The bracket! ngs are totally unnecessary in every case. We have, 
second column, page 74: 

I spake with one (my Lord) that came from thence. 

What human necessity was there to place " my lord " in brackets ? 

Again (column i, page 75): 

I ran from Shrewsbury (my noble Lord). 

Again (column 2, page 75): 

From whence (with life) he never more sprang up. 

And yet if a single one of these extraordinary bracketings and 
hyphenations had failed, the count would have broken down. And 
that this whole thing is forced and unnatural is shown by the 
further fact that we have here one hundred and ttventy -eight bracket 
and hyphenated words on the two pages, 74 and 75, preceding 
these words found out; while on the preceding pages, 72 and 73, 
there are but three bracket words and four hyphenated words! 

In short, there is not one chance in many hundred millions that 
this coordination of 836 and 900, upon the same words, could have 
occurred by accident. 

What does it prove ? 

That the plays — or this play at least — is a most carefully con- 
structed piece of mosaic work, most cunningly dovetailed together, 
with marvelous precision and microscopic accuracy. That there is 
not one cipher, but many ciphers in it. That it is a miracle of 
industry and ingenuity. And that these are the works to which 
Bacon alluded when he said: 

For there is some danger, lest the understanding should be astonished and 
chained down, and as it were bewitched, by such works of art as appear to be the 
very summit and piiiiiarle of human industry, so as not \.o become familiar with 
them; but rather to suppose that nothing of the kind can he accomplished, unless 
the same means be employed, with perhaps a little more diligence and accurate 
preparation.' 

' No7'iiiii Orgaiiiiiii, hciok ii. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CIPHER FOUND. 

If circumstances lead me, I will find 

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed 

Within the center. 

Hamlet^ it\ 2. 

^T /"HILE such evidences as the foregoing satisfied me of the 
' ' existence of a cipher, I was still but at the beginning of 
my task. 

What words followed found out 1 Fou/id out whixtl Who found 
out? Was I to look on the next column, the next page, the next 
scene, or the next play ? 

The creator of the cipher was master of his work, and could 
throw the sequent words where he pleased. He might match a 
play in the Histories with one in the Comedies, and thus the 
words would be separated by hundreds of pages. Nothing was 
impossible to the ingenuity manifested in that checker-work of 
fotmd out. All I knew was that the cipher words held an arith- 
metical relation to the numbers of the pages on which, or near 
which, they occurred, but beyond that all was conjecture. I was 
as if one had taken me into a vast forest, and told me that, on cer- 
tain leaves of certain trees, was written a narrative of incalculable 
importance to mankind; and had given me a clew to know the 
especial trees on which the words were to be found. If I had 
climbed into and searched the branches of these trees, and col- 
'ected, with infinite care, the words upon them, I was still at my 
vvits' end. How was I to arrange them ? As I did not know 
a single sentence of the story, nor the rule by which it was con- 
structed, I might have the very words I needed before me and 
would not recognize them. 

It seems to me that the labors of Champollion le Jeune and 
Thomas Young, in working out the Egyptian hieroglyphics from 
the tri-lingual inscription on the Rosetta stone, were simple com- 
pared with the task I had undertaken. They had before them a 

575 



576 



THE CIPHER IX THE PLA YS. 



Stone with an inscription in three alphabets — the hieroglyphic, 
the demotic and the Greek; and the Greek version stated that the 
three inscriptions signified the same thing. The problem was to 
translate the unknown by the known. It was observed that a cer- 
tain oval ring, inclosing a group of hieroglyphic phonetic signs, 
stood in a corresponding place with the name of Ptolemy in the 
Greek; and the same group was found, often repeated, over sitting 
figures of the temple of Karnak. The conclusion was inevitable, 
therefore, that that group signified Ptolemy. Furthermore, the 
word king occurred twenty-nine times in the Greek version of the 
Rosetta inscription, and a group holding corresponding positions 
was repeated twenty-nine times in the demotic. Another stone 
gave the phonetic elements which constituted the word Cleopatra. 
Champollion and- Young thus had acquired the knowledge of 
numerous alphabetical signs, with the sounds belonging to them, 
and the rest of the work of translation was easy, for the Egyptian 
language still survived in a modified form in the mouths of the 
Coptic peasants. 

But in my case I knew neither the rule nor the story. I tried 
to obtain a clue by putting together the words which constituted 
the name of the old play, The Co?itention between York and Lancas- 
ter, as found in the end of ist Henry IV. and the beginning of 
2d Henry J J'.; but, unfortunately, Contention occnrs twice (73d word, 
second column, page 74, 2d Henry IV., act i, scene 2, and the 496th 
word, second column, page 75), while York and Lancaster are 
repeated many times. 

Even when I had progressed so far, by countless experimenta- 
tions, as to guess at something of the story that was being told, I 
could not be certain that I had the real sense of it. For instance, 
let the reader write out a sentence like this: 

And then the infuriated man struck wildlj- at the dog, and the mad animal 
sprang upon him and seized him by the throat. 

Then let him cut the paper to pieces, so that each slip contains 
a word, jumble them together, and ask a friend, who has never seen 
the original sentence, to reconstruct it. He can clearly perceive 
that it is a description of a contest between a man and a dog, but 
beyond this he can be sure of nothing. Was the dog wa-^ or the 
man ? Which was infuriated? Did the dog spring on the man, or 



THE CIPHER FOUND, 577 

the man on the dog? Which was seized by the throat? Did the 
man strike wildly at the dog, or the dog spring wildly at the man? 

Every word in the sentence is a new element of perplexity. In 
fact, if you had handed your friend three slips of paper, containing 
the three words, stntck, Totn, John, it would have been impossible 
for him to decide, without some rule of arrangement, whether Tom 
struck John or John struck Tom; and the great question, like that 
of the blow inflicted on Mr. William Patterson, would remain for- 
ever unsettled. 

My problem was to find out, by means of a cipher rule of 
which I knew little, a cipher story of which I knew less. A more 
brain-racking problem was never submitted to the intellect of man. 
It was translating into the vernacular an inscription written in an 
unknown language, with an unknown alphabet, without a single 
clue, however slight, to the meaning of either. I do not wonder 
that Bacon said that there are some ciphers which exclude the 
decipherer. He certainly thought he had constructed one in these 
Plays. 

I. The Heart of the Mystery, 

The central point upon which the cipher turns is the dividing 
line between the two plays, the first part of Hetrry IV., and the second 
part of Henry IV.; and the essentials of the rule are found on the 
last page of the former play and the first page of the latter play. 

Observe how cunning this is. 

Here was a puzzle the solution of which depended upon putting 
together the two ends of two plays. Neither alone would give the 
rule or solve the problem. 

And Bacon published Part i of Henry IV. in 1598 and Part 2 
in 1600. Why ? Because he was not sure that the artificial character 
of the text might not arouse suspicion in that age of ciphers, and he 
desired to test it. He submitted it with curious interest to the 
public. But if it had aroused suspicion; if "Francis" "bacon" 
(printed with a small b), "Nicholas" "bacons" (also with a small 
/^"),"son," "St. Albans," etc., etc., had caught the suspicious eyes 
of any of Cecil's superserviceable followers, then he would have 
held back the second part, and it would have been simply impos- 
sible for any person to have worked out the cipher story; because 



578 THE CIPHER IN THE PIA YS. 

it turned upon pages 73 and 74 of an intended folio, while the 
quarto copy of the play began with page i. 

The original sheets of the author's manuscript, arranged in 
pages, as we have them in the great Folio of 1623, which paging 
alone could have revealed the treasonable story, were doubtless 
inclosed in some box or coffer, and carefully buried at St. Albans or 
Gray's Inn; for in that age of absolute power no man's private 
papers or desks were safe from a visitation of the myrmidons of 
the law. We will see that when Nash, the actor, was arrested for 
writing a seditious play, the Council ordered his papers to be at 
once examined. 

Delia Bacon said: 

We know that this was an age in which not the books of the learned only were 
subjected to "the press and torture which expulsed from them all those particulars 
that point to action " — action, at least, in which the common weal of men is most 
concerned; that it was a time when the private manuscript was subjected to that 
same censorship and question, and corrected with those same instruments and 
engines which made them a regular part of the machinery of the press; when the 
most secret cabinet of the statesman and the man of letters must be kept in order 
for that revision; when his most confidential correspondence, his private note-book 
and diary, must be composed under these restrictions; when in the church not the 
pulpit only, but the secrets of the study, were explored for proofs of opposition to 
the power then predominant; when the private desk and drawers of the poor, 
obscure country clergyman were ransacked, and his half-formed studies of ser- 
mons, his rude sketches and hypothetical notes of sermons yet to be — put down 
for private purposes, perhaps, and never intended to be preached — were produced 
by government as an excuse for subjecting him to indignities and cruelties to 
which those practiced upon the Earl of Kent and the Earl of Gloster in the play 
[of Leai-\ formed no parallel.' 

And in 1600, after the first part of the play of Hemy IV. had 
stood the test of two years of criticism, and the watchful eyes and 
ears of Francis Bacon could see or hear no sign or sound to indicate 
that his secret was suspected, he ventured to put forth the second 
part of the play. But this, like the other, began with page i, and 
detection was almost iiupossible. 

And for twenty years scarcely any of the Plays known by 
the name of Shakespeare were put forth, because to the keen eyes 
of the author they were peppered all over with suspicious words 
and twistings of the text, which might arouse suspicion and betray 
the fact that they were cipher-work. And when at last all the 
Plays were published in the great Folio, in 1623, arranged in their 

1 The Philosojiliy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded, p. 568. 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 



579 



due order, there was, as I have heretofore said, little risk of dis- 
covery. And in this Folio all the Plays were matched together, as 
I infer, just as these two parts of Henry IV. are; that is, the cipher 
of each group of two plays depended upon the last page of one and 
the first page of the other. Thus there was but little risk in put- 
ting out OthcUo alone, or Troilus and Crcssida by itself, not only 
because the paging of the quarto was not the same as that of the 
Folio, but because these plays were not accompanied by their 
cipher-mates, so to speak. They were like those curious writings 
we have read of in romances, where the paper was cut in half and 
each half secreted by itself, the writing not to be read and the 
secret revealed until they were put together. 

II. The Diagram on which the Cipher Depends. 

If the reader will study the. fac-si miles of pages 73 and 74 of the 
Folio of 1623, herewith given, he will find that the following 
diagram gives the skeleton, or construction, of the pages and 
columns, without the words. And as the entire cipher-story in the 
two plays, the first and second parts of Henry IV., radiates out from 
this diagram and extends right and left to the beginning of the First 
Part and the last word of the Second Part, it will be well for the 
reader to consider it closely. 

The figures in the middle of the parts of the diagram give the 
number of words in each subdivision. The figures on the margin 
give the number of words from one point of departure to 
another. The abbreviation ''hy," in this diagram, means hyphen- 
ated: it indicates that there are double words in the text, like 
ill-spirited, which are to be counted as one word or as two 
words, according to the requirements of the cipher rule. The sign 
" (3)" signifies that, in addition to the regular number of words in 
the text, there are three additional words in brackets: like "(as 
we heare)," in the second column of page 73. 

Throughout the cipher story, the abbreviations h and b will be 
used to save printing in full "hyphenated words "and " words in 
brackets," respectively. 



58o 



THE CIPHER IN THE TLA VS. 



Page 73. 

End of ]st Henry IV. 



Page 74. 
Beginning of 2ud Henry IV. 



1st Column . 



2nd Column. 



I 



A 

27 


- A " 
28 




A 
(■|3 




A 
209 (3) 


Scsena Quarta. 


A 

79 1 liy. 

V 


[The End of the Play.] 
Total on Page: 406 (3) 1 hy. 



'^ I 



The Second Part of 
Henry the Fourth. 

1st Column. 2nd Column. 


Actus Primus. Scsena Prima. 


Induction. 


Scsena Secunda. 


284 

(10) 7 hy. 

(1 iiy) 


A 

.51) 

V 




A 

168 
(21) 1 hy. 

V 




30 (1) 1 hy. 



J- A 



.2 cl.SJ 

1 1 



A 
I A. 



■ I I I 
N^ \C M/ * 

Here we observe that the first column of page 73 is broken into 
three parts: first by the words '''■A retreat is sounded,'' and secondly 
by the words ^^ Sccetia Quarta." The first subdivision contains 27 
words, the second 63 words, the last 79 words. Now if we count 
from the top of the column to the end of the first subdivision, we 
have 27 words; but if we count to and include the first word of the 
next subdivision, there are 28 words. If we count from the top of 
the column to the bottom we have 169 words; but if we count from 
the top of the second subdivision to the bottom of the column, we 
have, exclusive of the first word, 141 words; and from the end of 
the first subdivision, and including the first word of the second sub- 
division, we have 142 words. 

Again: if we count from the top of the column to the break 
caused by the words '■'■ Scana Quat'ta," we have 90 words; and to 
the top of the second subdivision, and including the first word of 
the same, we have 91 words. And if we count from the end of the 
first subdivision to the words ^^ Saena Quarta" we have 63 words; 
or, from the top of the second subdivision, excluding the first word, 
we have, to the end of the scene, 62 words. 

Again: if we count from the end of the second subdivision, the 
90th word, to the bottom of the column, we have 79 words; but 
from the 91st word down we have but 78 words. But there is a 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 581 

hyphenated word in that subdivision, to-wit, the word ill-spirited, 
the 97th word in the column; if this is counted in, that is, if it is 
counted as two words instead of one, then the 79 words become 80 
words, and the 78 words become 79 words. 

I would here explain that in the cipher tlie words spoken by ihe 
characters are alone coimted : the "stage directions," and the names 
of the characters speaking, are excluded from the count; so also 
are the numbers of the acts and scenes. 

Here, then, we have in the first column of page 73 these numbers: 

Words in first subdivision 27 

Words in second subdivision 63 

Words in third subdivision 79 

Words in the column 169 

Words from 27th word to bottom of column 142 

Words from 27th word to the end of second subdivision 63 

Words from 28th word to the end of column 141 

Words from 28th word to the end of second subdivision 62 

Words from the top of column to the end of second subdivision go 

Words from the top of column to the beginning of third subdivision 91 

Words from the beginning of third subdivision to end of column 79 

Words from the beginning of third subdivision, Jy/its one hyphen 80 

Now, all these numbers, in their due and regular order, become 
modifiers of the root-numbers whereby the cipher story is worked 
out. 

But there is another set of modifying numbers in the second 
column of page 73. 

There are two subdivisions of this column, caused by the break 
in the narrative where the words of the stage-direction occur: 

Exit Worcesle?' and Tcnio>i. 

The first subdivision contains 28 words, the second 209 words; 

the column contains 237 words, besides three words in brackets, 

" (as we heare)," on the seventh line from the bottom. If these are 

counted in, then the column contains 240 words, and the second 

subdivision contains 212 words. This column, then, gives us these 

modifying numbers : 

Words in first subdivision 28 

Words in second subdivision 209 

Words in second subdivision, phis the bracket words 212 

Words in column 237 

Words in column, plus the words in brackets 240 

Words from end of first subdivision to end of column 209 

Words from beginning of second subdivision to end of column 208 

Words from beginning of second subdivision, plus bracket words 211 



582 THE CIPHER IN THE FLA VS. 

But it will be found hereafter that the modifying numbers 
found on page 73 are not used in the cipher narrative until the 
same has been first modified by the numbers obtained, in the same 
way, on page 74. That is, page 74 is used before page 73. We 
therefore turn to that page. 

The first column of page 74 contains no breaks or subdivisions. 
There are 284 words in the text, besides 10 words in brackets, 7 
hyphenated words, and i hyphenated word inside a bracket — the 
word post-horse, on the fourth line. This gives us, therefore, the 
following numbers: 

Total words in column 284 

Total words in column, plus words in brackets 294 

Total words in column, plus hyphenated words 291 

Total words in column, plus hyphenated and bracket words 301 

Total words in column, plus all the hyphenated and bracket words in the 

column 302 

We pass now to the second column. Here, as in the first col- 
umn of page 73, we have three subdivisions; and these two col- 
umns — the first of 73 and the second of 74 — constitute the 
magical frame on which the cipher principally turns, and it is 
from the marvelous interplay of the numbers found therein that 
the cipher narrative is wrought out. 

The first subdivision of the second column of page 74 con- 
tains 50 words; the second, 168; the third, 30; and the reader will 
observe hereafter how those figures, 50 and 30, play backward 
and forward through the cipher story; and he will see how the 
whole story of Shakspere's life, as well as Marlowe's, radiates out 
from that central subdivision, containing 168 words, or 167, exclu- 
sive of the first word. 

The second column of page 74 gives us, then, these figures: 

Number of words in first subdivision 50 

Number of words in second subdivision 168 

Number of words in third subdivision 30 

Number of words from top of column to beginning of second subdivision .... 51 

Number of words from beginning of second subdivision to end of same 167 

Number of words from beginning of column to end of second subdivision. . . . 218 

Number of words from beginning of column to beginning of third subdivision . . 219 

Number of words from beginning of column to end of column 248 

Number of words from beginning of third subdivision to end of column 29 

Number of words from end of second subdivision to end of column 30 

Number of words from end of first subdivision to end of column 198 

Number of words from end of column to beginning of second subdivision. . . . 197 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 583 

But there are in this column 22 words in brackets and 2 
hyphenated words. These are in the second and third subdivis- 
ions, and modify them accordingly. That is to say, there are 21 
words in brackets in the second subdivision and i in the third; and 
there is i hyphenated word in the second subdivision and i in the 
third. Hence we have these additional numbers: 

Number of words in second subdivision 168 

Number of words in second subdivision, plus 21 bracket words i8g 

Number of words in second subdivision, plus i hyphenated word i6g 

Number of words in second subdivision, plus 22 bracket and hyphenated words igo 

Number of words in third subdivision 30 

Number of words in third subdivision, plus i bracket word 31 

Number of words in third subdivision, plus 2 bracket and hyphenated words. . 32 

The multipliers which produce the root-numbers are found in 
the first column of page 74. They are: 10 (the number of bracket 
words); 7 (the number of hyphenated words); 11 (the number 
of bracket words, plus the one hyphenated word, post-horse^ 
included in the bracket); and 18 (the total of bracketed and 
hyphenated words in the column). 

We have here, then, the machinery of Bacon's great cipher; and, 
as we proceed with the explanation of its workings, the wonder of 
the reader will more and more increase, that any human brain 
could be capable of compassing the construction of such a mighty 
and subtle work. 

The cipher story I shall work out in the following pages is but 
a small part of the entire narrative in these two plays. I break, as 
it were, into the midst of the tale, like one who overhears the mid- 
dle of a conversation between two men: he has not got it all, but 
from what he gleans he can surmise something of what must have 
preceded and of what will probably follow it. 

The root-numbers out of which the story grows are as follows: 

505- 506, 513, 516, 523. 

These are the keys that unlock this part of the cipher story, 
in the two plays, ist and 2d Henry IV. They do not unlock it all; 
nor would they apply to any other plays. They are the product of 
multiplying certain figures in the first column of page 74 by cer- 
tain other figures. The explanation of the way in which they are 
obtained I reserve for the present, intending in the future to work 



584 



THE CIPHER IN THE FLA YS. 



out the remainder of the narrative in these two plays, which I here 
leave unfinished. It may, of course, be possible that some keen mind 
may be able to discover how those numbers are obtained and antici- 
pate me in the work. I have to take the risk of that. My publishers 
concur with me in the belief that the copyright laws of the United 
States will not give me any exclusive right to the publication of 
that part of tlie cipher narrative in the plays which is not worked 
out by myself. I shall therefore have worked for years for the 
benefit of others, unless in this way I am able to protect myself. 
"The laborer is worthy of his hire," and if such a discovery as this 
could have been anticipated by the framers of our copyright laws, 
they would certainly have provided for it. For if a man is entitled 
to gather all the benefits which flow from a new application of 
electricity, as in the telegraph or the telephone, to the amount of 
millions of dollars, certainly there should be some protection for 
one who by years of diligent labor has lighted a new light in litera- 
ture and opened a new gate in history. 

Neither do I think any reasonable man will object to my reserv- 
ing this part of the cipher. My friend Judge Shellabarger, of 
Washington, said in an address, in 1885, before a literary society of 
that city: 

If any man proves to me that in any writing the tenth word is oiir, the twen- 
tieth word Father, the thirtieth word rvho, the fortieth word art, the fiftieth word in, 
the sixtieth word heaven, and so on through the whole of the Lord's Prayer, we 
must confess, however astonished we may be, that such a result could not have 
occurred by accident; but that these words must have been ingeniously woven into 
the text by some one, at those regular and stated intervals. 

And if this be true when the cipher word is every tenth word, 
would it not be equally true if the Lord's Prayer occurred in the 
text at intervals represented by the following figures? 



loth word. 


i8th word. 


27th word. 


loth word. 


1 8th word. 


27th word. 


Our 


Father^ 


who 


art 


in 


heaven, 


loth word. 


iSth word. 


27th word. 


loth word. 


1 8th word. 


27th word. 


haUo7i'ed 


be 


thy 


name: 


thy 


kingdo?n 


loth word. 


i8th word. 


27th word. 


loth word. 


i8th word. 


27th word. 


come; 


thy 


7vill 


be 


done 


on 


loth word. 


1 8th word. 


27th word. 


loth word. 


1 8th word. 


27th word. 


earth 


as 


it 


is 


in 


heaven. 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 585 

That is to say, if the cipher narrative moves through the text 
not 10, 10, 10, etc., but 10, 18, 27; 10, 18, 27; 10, 18, 27, etc. 

And if this be true of a short writing, Hke the Lord's Prayer, 
does it not amount to an absolute demonstration if this series of 
numbers, or any other series of numbers, extends through many 
pages of narrative, from the beginning of one play to the end of 
another? 

Instead of the cipher story in these Plays being, as some have 
supposed, a mere hop-skip-and-jump collocation of words, it will be 
found to be as purely arithmetical, and as precisely regular, as 
either of the examples given above. 



4<J 




The Firll Part of Henry the Fourth, 

vvkh the Life and Death of H E N R Y 



Simamc^a HOT^SPVRRE. 



QjfUus Trimm. Sccena Trma. 




£SSS^Ki«g Lord lohf! ofLancA^etJE^rk 

fhaien as we arc, fo wan wich caret 
Findc weatimefor frighted Peace to pflt5r» 
^ndbicath iliortwindcd accents of iiew broils 
fo be coioraciKd ir< Scrondt a.tarrc icinote : 
So more thethiifty entrance cf this Soifcj 
Shall daabe hct iippes with her owne chilarerrs blood j 
No fT.orc fhall tteivtbing Warrc channcll her fields. 
Nor bruifc hex Fl-owrets with the Armed hoofes 
Of hofluc faces.. Thofeoppofcd eyes^ 
Which like the Meteors of a troubled HeaucDi 
All of one Nature, of one Subftar.cc bred, 
d lately raeete in the iiiteftine (hocke* 
And fiitio«s cloze of ciuill Butchery, 
Shall now m mutuall wen-bcfcenung tanlces 
March all one way, and be no more oppos'il 
Againft Acqtiaintanc?,Kindred,and Allies., 
The edgeoE Warre.likc an ilUfheathed knife. 
No more {hall cnt his Malkr. ThereforeFricnds, 
As farre as to thcLSepulcher of Cnrift. 
Whofe Souldiet now vnder whofc blcfTcd Croflc 
Wc are imprefled and iiigag d lo fight. 
Forthwith a powei of Eoglifii fliall vjp. kuie, 
Whofe armes were moulded in their Mothers wombe. 
To chace thefc Pagans in cbofc holy Fields, 
Ouer wliofc Acres walk'd thofe blelTedfccte 
Whidifouueene hundred yearesago weicnMl'd 
For our aduancage on the bittei Cmfle^ 
jBucthis oarpurpofc is a tweluemonth olcf, 
And bootlcfTc'iis to tellyou we will go • 
Therefore we moete net now. Then let mchcarc 
Of you niy gentle Coufin Wf ftmerhnd 
Wh« yefternight our Counccl! did decree. 
XU forwarding this dcercc'tiicdiencc. 
;- fyefi. MyJLicgcsTlii.huflewashotinqucftion, 
And many hmits of i lie Charge fet downc 
Butyefternightiwhcn ail athwart there came 
A Poft from Wales, loadenwiihheauyNcwes; 
Whofe. woiftwasj That the Noble UW*m»»«»', 
reading the nw.ii ofHerefcrdrhlrctofighr 
ft^lfcft theirrc<?ular and wihle Ctendateer, 
Was by ihstude hands ofthat VVclftiiTiantaksn^ 
ftgdatkoulaiiri of his people buccheied i 



VponA\hofe dead corpes there was fuch mifujc, 
Suchbeaftly,fii3mel{fl"«irjnsforaatjon» 
By thofe Wdfliwomen done^ as may not b« 
(Without much Hiame) re told or fpoken at 

Kmg It feemcs then.that the tidings of ihii broife- 
Brake off our bofine (fe for the H-'/y land* 

mjlj Thisniaichtwiih other hkf,niygracious tori 
Farre more vneuert and vnwelcome Ncwct ' 
Came from the North, and thus jc did report S 
OnHoIy-roode day, the gallant //tf/i^a>-rfthcit» 
Young/Ziirrjf Percy, and braoe i^rchihU, 
Thar euer-valiani and approoucd Scot, 
At Holmeden met, where they did fpcnd 
A lad and bloody houre; 
As by difcharge ot their Artiileric, 
And fli.ipeofhkciy-lioodthc;iewes was told; 
For he that brougjlii tlicm, in the very hcato 
And pride of their canieiition, did take horfc, 
Vncertaine of the iffae any way. 

.K'tx^ Heereis a dcere ani true induftrious friend^ 
Sit H'altet !LVtf«r,new lighted from his Hotfc, 
Strain'd with the variation of each loyle. 
Betwixt that HolfHfdon,zr\<l this Scat of ours : 
And he hath brought vi fmoorh and welcomes newes: 
The Eatlc oiDovpgUs is difcoiiifitcd, 
Ten ihoufand bolu Scots, two and twenty Knight J 
fialk'd in their owne blood did Sir /T/iAirr fee 
On Holnndons PJaines. Of PrifonerSj Hot^mn (oolc 
MordAke Earic of Fife, and cldeft fbnne 
To beaten 'DovK^lai and the Earlc diAihaU^ 
Q^Marrjt oAn^Mfiad Menteiib. 
Audisnot-ihisan honourable fpoylc? 
A galhnt priz.c ? H.i Colin.is it not? Infai th it i j» 

ffefi^ A Conqueft for a Prince to boaft efi 

Kw^. Yd, there thou mak'ft roe fad,8i mak'ftiMilp, 
Incnuy, that my Lord Noithumberland 
Should be the Father of fa bkft a Sonne : 
A Sonne,who is the Thcamc of Honors tongue j 
Among'it a Groue, the very ftraightcft Plant, 
Who it fwect Fortunes Minion,and her Pride 5 
Whil'ft I by looking on the praile of him. 
See Ryot and Difhoivor ftaine ihc brow 
Of my yong Hrrry. O that it couldbeprou'J, 
That fome Night-tripping -Faiery, had exchang'<| 
In Cradle-dothej, our Children where KhsfUy, 
And call'd aaa&Ptrcji his Pltint^mit : 



50 



^he Firfi ^art ofK^ng Henry the Fourth, 



Points. Gootl morrow fweetHi*/. Whatfaies Mon- 
fieuiRetnorfc ? Whar faycs Sir lohn S3cl<e and Sugar : 
]acke?Howon;reesthcDiuc\land thee about thy Soule, 
thai ihoufoldert him on Good-Friday laft, fora Cup of 
Madcra,3nd a cold Capons leggc ? 

Prin. Sir lohn ftands tohisAword, thediuel fhall baue 
bis barcaiuCjlor he was neucr yer 3 Breaker ofProuerbs: 
Hf TPill iTtue the ciiueUhis due. 

fflw.Then art thou damn'd for keeping thy word with 
the dlue'il. 

prin. Elfc he bad daroa'd for coaeningihe diuell. 

Foy, Btit my Lads, ray Lads, to morrow morning, by 
foure a clockc early atGadshill, there are Pilgrimcs go- 
ingtoCanterbury with rich Offerings, and Traders ri- 
ding to London with faiPurfcs. 1 haue vizards for you 
all ; you hauc horfes for your fehics : Gads-hill lyes to 
ni^ht in Rochcflicr, I hauc bcfpoke Supper to morrow in 
Eaftcheape; we may doe it as fcciire as fleepe: if you will 
go,IwiUftuffeyourPurfes fullofCtownes : if you will 
not, tarry at home and be hang'd. 

TaI. Heare ye Yedward,if I tarry at home and go not, 
He hang you for going, 

poy. You will chops. 

Fal. Hal, wilt thou make one? 

Prin. Who, I rob? I a Thcefc? Not I. 

Fd/, There's neither honefiy, matihood,nor good fcl- 
lowfbrp in thee, nor thou cam'rt not of theblood-royall, 
if thou dar'ftirot ftand foi ren fhillings. 

Pr/Wk Wdl then.oncc in roy daycs He be a ma J-cap. 

f»(. Why j that's well faid. 

Pria. Well, come what will, He tarty at home, 

Fdl, lie be a Traitor then^whcn thou art King. < 

Prin. I care not, 

Pojn. Sir iohti,1 prytheeleaue the Prince & mc alone, 
I will lay him downc fuch reafons for this aduenture.that 
he fhall go. 

Fd. Well, maift thouhaue the Spirit of'perfwafion ; 
and he the cares ofpiofiiiog, that what thou fpeakeft , 
may moue ; and what he heores may be beleeucd>th4t the 
true Piince,roay(for recreation fakc)proue a falfe thecfe ; 
for the pooreabufes ofihetime,wanc countenance. Far- 
wcll.you fhall findc mc m Eaftcheape. 
' Prin. FatwcllthelatteiSoiing. Faiewell AlholIov;n 

Summer. 

Poy. Now, mygBedfwces Hony Lord, ride withvi 
tomorrow.ilhaucaiefliocxccuic:, that I cannot man- 
nagc alore. F.tl/laffe, Harney. P.nJJiil, and qads-hiH, fliall 
robbc thoCe men that wee hr-ue a!i rady way-laydc, your 
fclfcandI,wilnotbetherc:3ndiAhcn(hey hauc the boo- 
ty, if you a'nd I do not rob ihcm,^cut this head from my 
fiioulders. 

Prin.^vK how fhil w^ part with them in fctting fonh? 

Ptyn. \Vhy,we wil fct forth before or after them, and 
appoint them a place of n ectiiig, whcrin it is at our plea- 
fiire to faile ? and then will they aduenturc vppon the ex- 
ploit thcinfelucs, which they fliall haue no foonet atchie- 
ucd, but wcc'l fct vpon them. 

PrtA. l.bnttis! ke that they will know vs by out 
hoifesby our habiiSjSnd by cucry other appointment to 
beoui felues. 

Toy. Tut our hotfes they fhali not fee. Tie tyc them in 
I the wood, out vizoids wee will change aftei wee Icaue 
{ them : and furah, 1 haue Cafes of Buckram for the DoncCj 
to immaske ournotcd outward garments. 

Prin. But I doubt they will be too hat d for vs. 

£ein, WcU.for two of ihcm, I know them to bee as 



true bred Cowaids as eiier turn'd backc.and for the third 
if he fight longer then he fecjreafon,IIeforfwear Armes, 
The veituc ofthisleft will be.thcincoroprehenfjblelyes 
that this fat Rogue will tell vs,when we meete at Suppers 
how thirty at leaft he fought with, what Wardes, what 
blowcs,^whatextrcn^itiesheendured;a^d in thercproofc 
ofthii, lyes the ieft. 

TriK. Weil, Ik goe with thee, prouide vi all things 
neceffary, and meete roc tomorrow night in Eancheap& 
there lie fup. Farewell. 

f £>■», FarewclLroy Lor^. ExitPmta, 

Prin. I know you all, and will a-while rphold 
The vnyoak'd humor of your idleneflc : 
Yetheetein will I imitate the Sunne, 
Who doth permit the bafe contagious cloudcs 
To fmothet vp hii Beauty from the world. 
That when he plcale againe to be himfeife. 
Being wanicd,he may be mote wondrcd ar. 
By breaking through the foulc and vgly niiils 
Of vapours, that did feeme to (Iran'gle him. 
If all the yearc were playing holidaics, 
To fport, would be as tedious as to worke ; 
But when they Icldomc come, they wiflit-for cosne. 
And nothing plcafeth but rare accidents. 
So when this loofebchauiour I throw off, 
And pay the debt 1 neucr prorailed ; 
By how much better then my word I am. 
By fo much fhall 1 falfifie mem hopes, 
And Lke bright Mettall on a (ullen ground : 
My reformation glittering o'rc my fault. 
Shall fhew more goodly, and attraft rnor*; eyes. 
Then that which hath no foyle to fct it off, 
lie fo offend, to make offence a skill, 
Redeeming ttme^\vhen men thinke leafl I will. 



Sc(£rja Tertia, 



Eater the Kin^,Northnh}krl.wdJf^orcefier,HotJpnrref 
Str IS^dser "Blnnt, and others. 

King, My blood hnth bscnc too cold and temperat^ 
Vnapt to f^irre at the le indignities. 
And you haue found me ; for accordingly. 
You tread vpon my patience : But be furc, 
I will from henceforth rather be my Selfc, 
Mighty, and to befear'd, then my condition 
Which hath beenc fmooth at Oylt,fofc as yoflgDowne, 
And therefore loft that Title of refpeft, 
Which the proud foulc ne'rc paycsjbut to the proud, 

H-'or. Our hojjfe (my Soueraigne Liege)littlc defcruei 
The fcourge of greatneffe to be vfed on it, 
And that fame gteatncfic too, which out owne handi 
Haue holpe to make fc portly. 

Nor, My Lord. 

King. Worcefter get thee gone : for I do fee 
Danger and difobedience in thine eye. 
O fir.youi prefenceis too bold and peremptory. 
And Maiefbe might ncuet yet endure 
The moody Frontier of a fcruant brow, 
You hauegoodleauetoleaue vs. When we need 
Yourvfe and counfelUwe (hall lend for you. 
You were about to fpeake. 

North, Yea, my good Lord. 

Thofe 



^ TheFirfi Tan ofJ^in^Henry tbeFmrtL 



Hot. Buefoft Ipray you ; did King Riehardxkta. 
Prodaimc my ft other Manimttj 
Heyrtto the Crowne ? , 
' 'Xfltt. Hedid, myfeffedicfheareir. 

Hot. Nay then 1 cannot blame his Coufin KIn<», 
That wifli d him on the Darren Mountaines (laru'd. 
But fhall it be, thacyoulhat let the Crowne , 
Vpon the head of this forgctfull man. 
And forhts iake.worc thc-detefted bloc 
Of murtherous fubomation? Shall it be. 
That you a world of curfes vndergoe. 
Being the Agents, or bafe fecond meanes. 
The Cords, the Ladder, or the Hangman rather ? 
O paTdoiijif that I defcend fo low, 
To /hew the Line, and the Predicament 
Wbcrcinyou range vnder this fubtill King. 
Shall it for fti3nie,be fpoken in theCe daycs. 
Or fill vp Chronicles in time to come. 
That men of your Nobility and Power, 
Did gagethcm both in an vniutt behalfe 
(As Both of you, God pardon it, haue done) 
To put downr Ru:hard, that fwect loucly Rofe, 
And plant this Thome, this dnkevUuIJtv^Srook;^ 
And (hall it in more fhamc be further fpoken. 
That you are foord, tiifcardcd.and fliookeoft' 
By him, for whom thefe fhamcs ye vnderwent ? 
No : y« time ferties, wherein you may ledcerne 
Your baflifh'd Honors, and rcflore your fclues 
Into the good Thoughts of the world againe. 
Reuenge the geering and difdain'd contempt 
Ofthts proud King, who ftudies day and nighc 
To anfwer all the Debt he owes vnto you, 
Ei.cn with the bloody Payment of your deaths s 
Therefore I fay • 

i^o>^ Peace Coufin. fay no more. 
And now 1 will vnclaspc 2 Secret booke. 
And to your quicke conceyuing Difcontcnts, 
lie rcade you Matter, decpe and dangerous. 
As full ofpcrill and aducnturoui Spine, 
Astoo're-walkca Current, roaring lou3 
On the vfiRedfaft footing of a Spcarc. 

Hot. 11 he fall in, good night, or hoke or fwitnme : 
Send danger from the EalJ vnto the VVctt, 
So Honor crofTe it from the North to South, 
And let them grapple : The blood more Ibrres 
To rowze a Ly«n,then to ftart a Harc- 

JVor Imagination offome great exploit, 
Driues him beyond thebounds ofPatiencc. 

Hot. By heiuen, me thinkes it were an eafieleap, 
Toplucke bright Honor from the pale-fac d Moone, 
Or diue into the bonome oi the deepe, 
WherePadome-line could neuer touch the ground, 
And pluckc vp drowned Honor by the Lockcs : 
Sohethat'dothredeemcher thence, might wcarc 
Without Co-rruall,all'lier Dignities: 
But out vpon this halfe-'fnc d Ecllowfhip, 

iFbr. Hcappreheiids a World of Figures here, 
Bnt not the forme of what he fhould attend : 
Good Coufin giUe me audience for a-while. 
And lift to me. 

Hot. 1 cry you mercy. 

fFo-/. 1 hofc fame Noble Stoites 
That arc your Ptifoncrs, 

.,Hot. illckccpethcm alL 
By iicauen, fie iT.^ll eat haue a Scot of them :\;\ 
No. jf a Scot would hue his Soulcjhe Ihallnot.i ' 



lie keepe them, by thb Hand. 

M^or. You ftarc away. 
And lend no care vnto my purpofes. 
Thofe Ptifoncrs you fliall keepe. 

Hot. Nay, I will ; that's flat : 
He faid, he would not ranfome Mommeri 
Forbad my tongue to fpeakcot .l/en/wo-. 
But 1 will finde hira when he lyes afleepc. 
And in hiseare. He holla Mortimer. 
Nay, He haue a Starlirig {hall be taught to fpeake 
Nothing but Mortimer, znd giue it him. 
To keepe his anger ftill in motion. 

U^or. HearcyouCoufiuraword. 

Hot, All ftudies heerc I foleninly defie, 
Sauehow to gall and pinch rhis BuRiuqdroohei 
And that fame Sword and Buckler PrTnce of Wales. 
But that I thinkehis Father loues him not, 
And would be glad he met with fomc mif chance^ 
I would hauepoyfon'd him with a pot of Ale, 

ivor. Farewell Kinfinan : lie talketo you 
When yon arebctter tempei d to attend. 

iVar.'.Why what a Wafpe-tongu'd & impatient foole 
Art thou, to breakc into this Womans mood, 
Tying thine cate to no tongue but thine ownc T 

Hot.Why look you, I am whipt & fcourg'd witbiodi, 
Nctled,and ftung with Pifmires.whcn Ihcarc 
Of this vile Politician "Buninglirooke. 
laSjchards time : What de'ye call the place ^ 
A plague vpon't, it is in Glouflerihite : 
'Twas,wherc the madcap Duke his Vnclekepi, 
His Vndc Yorke,K here I jlrfl bow'd my knee 
Vnto this King of Smiles, this Bullmiheokei 
VVhen you and he came backe ftom' Ranenfpurgb. 

Nor. AtBarkJeyCafilc, 

Hot. You fay true : 
Why what a caudie dcale of curteHe, 
This fawning Grey hound then did proffer met 
Looke v;hen his infant Fortune came to age, 
And gcnde H^rrj Percy, and kinde Ccufin : 
O, the Diuell take fuch Coiizcners,God forgiueme. 
Good Vnde tell your tale, for 1 haue done. 

fyor. Nay, if you haue not, coot againe, 
Wee'l flay your leyfure. 

Hot. 1 haue done inCooth. 

ff^or. Then once more to yout Scottifh Prifoners. 
Deliuer them vp w'thout their ranfome flraight. 
And make the i!)ow^/<wfonne your onelymcane 
For powr.es in Scotland : which for diuers teafont 
Which I Oiall fend you written,be afllit'd 
Will eafily be granted you, my Lord. 
YourSonne in Scotland being thus imp 1 y'd» 
Shall fccretly into the bofome creepe 
Of that fame noble Prelate, well bclou'dj 
The Archbifhop. . 

Hot. OfYorke,i$'tnot? 

fVor. True, who bcares hard v. 
His Brothers death at Brifiom, the Lord Scroeje. 
I fpeakcnoc this in cftimation. 
As what I thinke might be, but what 1 know 
Is ruminated.plotted.and fet downe. 
And onely ftayes but to behold the face 
Ofthat occafion that fiiall bring it on. 

Hot. Iimcllit: 
Vpon my life, it wiil do wond'rous well. 

Nor. Bcforethe game's a-foot, thou ftilllef ft fl?p. 

Hot. Why,it cannot choofe but be aNoble plot. 

And 



Ti&g Firji Tartv/Kjng Hmrythe Fourth. ^ 



/lad then ihepowej ofScotland^and of 'Vorke 
Xoioync with Mortimer, H», 

War, And fo they fliall. 

Jitt, InfaJih it is exceedingly wsll aym'4.; 

fl'Vr* ^nd'tisnolictlcrcafon bidivslpced, 
lofaue out heads, by raifiiTgofftHead s 
For, beatc out fclua-jt^irctj as wc can, 
TisKingwJltalwayenhmktflijmiooordebQ 
Xod fhinke.we ihinkc our fcluei vuGtisficd, 
Till he hath found a time«»p^y is home, 
Artd fe$'«J«J><V»how. he dbth beginne 
Toi8i'^''*flw^§l'^'^^^*''^'' lookes of loue, 

H*/» He docs.jie docs; wee! be rcuen^^d;On him. 

Iffl-rf CaJjiJUjfatcvvelU No further go ia this. 
Then I by Letters fnall direiii yout courfc 
Wbcn limclstipe, which wiH hp fodainlyi 
llt^enlc'td GMower and loe, MoriimeKy 
Vihicre you.and DowgUf.ana our po vvjes sronce^ 
JM.I will fafiiion it, fhall happily roecte, 
Tobearc our fortunes in our ownc fii ong arme j, 
WhicB nov!( wChoId armuchvnceitainty.; 

J^i Fatewell good Btothcr, we ifhail thtiue, I truft. 

ffoti Vncle.adieu ; O let the hourc s be fhort, 
TillfieldsjandbloweSjand groncs.appUudour rpott.*.v;; 



Mius Sccimdus. ScenaT^rhnar 



Enter 4 Carrier whi a Lanttrnt m his ^md, 

t.Car. Helgh-ho,5tti'tbeno5 fouteby the dayjle be 
bang'd, Charles witate is ouer the new Chimney, and yet 
ourhorfenotpackt. WhatOftlet? 

Op. Anon.anon. 

%jCxr. I prcchee Tom, beatc Cots Saddle, piitafew 
Floclccs in the point ; the poore lade is wrung in the Vfi- 
jthersjPutofaUccfle. 

i.»ter another Currier,. 

a.Cjr.^Peafe and Beancs arc-as danke here as aDog, 
and this is the next way to giue poore lades thp Bones : 
This houfc is turned vpfide downe fince %o(iin the Oftlcr 
^e(W 

:itCgr. Poore fellow ncuet ioy'd fince the price of oats 
ISOfCjit was the death of him. 

li.. Car, Ithinkctbis isthcmoflvillanoushoufclnal 
Condon rode for Fleas: I am flung like aTcnch; 

\,C^r. Like a Tench .' Thereisne'rea KinginChri- 
ftfndome.couId be better bit,then I haue beene (rnce the 
tirfl Coclcc. 

a.C/»r. Why, you will allow vsne'rc a] lourden, and 
then \ve leake in your Chimney : and yout Chamber -lyc 
bteeds Fleas like a Loach. 

>.C<«r. What Oftlcr;comc away.andEchangd.'Come 
away, 

a.dr. 1 haue a Gammon of Bscon, land two razes of 
G5nger,tobe deliuered at fatreasCharing-crofle. 

XcCar. TheTutkiesinmy Pannier arc naitc fiarued. 
WhacOftler? A plague on thee,haft thou nrtK?ran eye in 
thy head PCan'ft not hcarc ? Andt'were notasgooci a 
deed as drinkc, to break thepate oftheej am a very Vil- 
binc. Come and b&hang'd,haft no faich in thcc ? 
Enter Cudt-htH. 

Qad. Good'morrow Carriers. What's a cloclcc? 

Car, 1 thinke icbe two a clockc. 

Cad. J prqthec lend mc thy Lanthomc t» fee my Gel- 



V 



dingintbeftable. 

I ,Car. Nay fofe Tptay ye, I know a trick worth cw« 
of chat. 

Cad, Ipretheclendmethine. 

■a.Ctfr. !jWhcn, canft tell f Lend meethy Lanthorue 
(quoth.a) marry He fee thee hang'd drft. 

Cad. SiriaCattier:What'timcdo you mean to come 
to London? 

ilC/ir. Time enough to goc to bed with a Candle, 1 
warrant thee. Come neighbour t-^f»g^w, wee'll.call vp 
the Gentlemen, they wilWong with company, for they 
haue great charge. ExtuMt 

EfftW Chamherlaint, 

Gad. What ^o, Chamberlaine ? 

Cham. At hand quoth Pick-pUtfe, 

Gad. That's cuen as faire,as at hand quoth the Cham- 
bcrlaioc : For thou varieft no more from pickhtg'ofPor- 
fes, then giuing dire£lion, doth from labouting . Thou 
lay ft the plot, how. 

(^bapf. Good morrow Maftet Gads- Hill, it holds cur- 
rant that 1 told y^ou yeftetnight. There's a Ftanklin in the 
wildc of Kent, hath brought three hundred Markes with 
him in Gold: I heard nim tell it to one of his company lad 
ni ght at Supper ; a kinde of Auditor, one that hath abun- 
dance of charge too (God knowcs what) they are»p al- 
ready, and call for Egges and Butter. They will away 
prefcntly.^ 

Cad, Sirra, if they ineete not with S .Nicholas CIark»^ 
lie giue thee this nccke.. 

(^bam. No, Jle none of it : I prythec ktcp that for the 
Hangman, fori know thou worrtiipftS.Nitholas as ttiin 
ly as a man of filflnood may. 

Cad. WhattalkeftthoutoineofiheHangman? If I 
hang, llemakeafatpayrcofGallowes. JFor, ifl.hang» 
old Sir Fohn hangs with mee, and thoM know'lt hee's no 
Starucliiig. Tut, there arc other Troians that ^ dream'ft 
not of, the which (for fpott fake} are content to doc the 
Profeffion fome grace ; that would (if matters fhould bee 
look'd into) for their owne Credit fake, make all WhoFe. 
lamioynedwiihnoFoot«la!id»Kakcrs, no Long-fiaffc 
fix-penny Rrikcrs, none of theft mad Muftachio-purplc- 
hu*d-MaIc\vormcs, but with Nobility, andTranquiliiie; 
Bourgomaftcrs, and great Oneycrs, fuch as can hoId« in, 
fuch as will firike fooner then fpcakc ; and fpeakc (boner 
then drinke- and drin\-e fooner then pray: and yet Hyp, 
for they pray continually vnto their Saint the Ccjnmon- 
wealth i or rather, not to pray to her, but prey on her:for 
they tide vp & Jownc on hcr,and make hir their Boots. 

Cham. What,thc Commonwealth theit Bootesi WiH 
ffic hold out water in foule way? 

Gad. She wilKfiie will; luftice hath liquor'd her. We 
fteaie as in a Caftlccockfurc: we haue the receit of Fern- 
fccde,wewalkeinuifible, 

(liaKfs. Nay , 1 thinke rather^ ^bu are more beholding 
to the Night, then to:hefernfeed,fotyour walking in- 
uifiblc. 

Cad. Giue me thy hand. 
Thou (halt haue a iharc in our purpofe. 
As lama true man. 

Chaii, Nay, rather let mce hauclt, as yowwela falfe 
Thcefc. 

Cwf. Goctoo: H«iw(7 is a common name to all men. 
Bid the Oilier bring tfte Gelding out of the liable. Fare- 
well.ye muddy Knaue, Exemt. 

e t Sena 



H 



The Firjl^artofK^n^ Henry the tmnk 



Sc^naSecmda, 



£fifet'P.rt»ee,PojHer^gndPeto. 

Poifies. ComefiicIter,fhcIcer, Ihaueremoaedf/rJ?/?/)' 
Horfe,and fidft^s like a gum d Vduet. 

PriH, Stand'clofe. 

Enter faljhffe. 
'^al,' PoinesJ'oines, and be hang'd Poiatf, 

Pritt. Peace yc fat-kidney'd Rafcall, whac a brawling 
doflthoultccpe. 

¥al. What /*«/»<?/. Hal}, 

Prin. He is walk'd vpto the top oftiie bill,llc go feck 
bim. 

faL I am sccurft to rob in that Thcefe cothpany: that 
Rafcall hatli renaoued my Horfe,and tied him I know not: 
wheirc.' If I trauellbut foare foot by the fqoire furtheils 
footejlftiallbreakemy winde. Well,! doubs not hue 
to dye 3 fatre death foi ill this, iff fcape hancjug fot kil- 
ling that Rogue, I haueforfwotne his company hourcly 
any time this two and twenty yeare,^ yet laiTrbewitchi 
with the Rogues company, jf the Rafcall hiat iVotgluen 
lUe medicines to make me loilehim^Ilebchatig d;it could 
fiotfeftlfc:! hauc dr'unke Medicines, Poities, Hal, a 
PfegaCvponyou both. \Bardolph,.Pet9:l:\^^i'cMe ere I 
rob kCoote further.' And 'twere not as good a deqde as to 
dHf(lte,toturneTrue»Aati,and to leaue thefe Rogues, I 
amthcvericft Varlet that cuct chewed with a Tooth. 
Eightyards of vneucn ground, is thrtefcore & ten miles 
afbot with me ; and the ftony-hcartcd Villaines kr.o we i t 
will enough. A plague Tcpon't,when Theeucs cannot be 
tnic one to another. 7 lifj WbifiU. 

Whew : a plague light Tpon yoti>3lJ.GiLemy Horfc you 
Rogues : giue me my Horfcand be hang'd; 

Tfifl. 'Peace ye fat guttes,- lye downe, lay tliine ear* 
cttffe to the ground^and Kft irthou can bcarc the ittiisl 
TrattcUcrs. 

:'JP*t. Haae you asy t eaaers to lift roe vp agalnljtlng 
downe ? He not bearc nnne owne fleflb fo far ztooi again, 
for aili tbe coine in thy Fathers Exchequer.What a plague 
meane yeto colt mc thus ? 

PriH.Thovi ly'ft.thou arc nor coltcd,ihou arc vncoIlcS. 

Fdtl prethec good Prince f/<?/,hc)p me to my hotft, 
good Kings fonne. 

friri. OutyoiiRogue^fballlbeyoiirOfSIer? 

FaT. Go hang thy felfe in thine bwnehcire-apparant*' 
Garters :'lfl be tar.e. He peach for this: and I hsue not 
Ballads made on all, and fung to filthy tunes, Ice a Cup of 
Sacke be my poy fon : when aJU:(Udbfo£VVard|Se a footc 
h»o,Ihateiti < 

Gad. Standi 

lPaI\ JoIdffagairiflmywnU 
!Pciit,.\ O 'tis our Setter, f know his voyce i 
5«Yfc//J,-whatnewes ? 

IBitj, Cafeye.cafeycjon witTiyout Vizardsj thcrfi* 
roony of tHe Krugsiommiflg downe thcliill, 'tisj going 
lojhs Kings Exchequer- 
^2£!¥«vReyoif rogue, <'ngoUrgTO.theTBng»Tauern; 
'.fiffliLThere^ enough %6taak€viMl 



Prm. Youfoure fliall front them in the narrow Lane* 
NeA andl,wiU waike lower j if they fcape ftom'you? ^ni 
counter,then they light on Ys; 

P«9.'.But how many be of them? 

Cad, Some eight Often;' 

Fal. Will they not rob vj? 

Print VVhat.a Coward Sir /oiv Paunch 

Fnl.- Indeed I am not /eA» of (?<?««/ your Grandfailieri 
b ut yet no Coward, HM. ' 

Prin, Wec'l I'caue that to the proofe^ ! 

/>««; Sirra lacke.thy horfc ftands behfnde the he^ig^ 
when thon necd'ft him, there thou {halt findehim. Fare* 
wcll.andttandfaft.' 

Wdl. Now cannot I ftrVke him.if I fhouldbe hang'd. , 
^Prm.JNed, where are our difgulfcj ( 

7'ow. Hecrc hard by : Stand clofc> 

Pal. Now my Maftcfs, happy man be his dole, fay I x 
euerymanto his bufineflc 

3'nteh' Trauellers. 

Tra. ComeNeighboif: the boy lliall leadeoutHosres 
dowhc the hill : Wee'l vvalkc a-foot a wbile^and cafe our 
Leggcs* 

ThteueSi Stay. 

Tr*. Icfubleflevs. 

Jd. Strile down with them, cut the villain j throaff; 
a whorfon Caterpillars : Bacoi) fed Knaues, they Jiate vs 
youth jdownc with them.fleece ihem.J 

7r<f; 0,we are vndon^both wc and ours for cuer— ' 

F<tl, Hang ye gorbcUied knaues,areyou vndoiie ? No 
yeFatChuffes.Iwould your ftorC were heere. On Ba- 
cons on, what ye knaues ?Yong men muft hue, yotfare 
Grand Iurers,areye . Wcc'l iursye ifaith. 

Ileere'thejfro^ them,aMdkndi them. Saier the 
Prii::! mid Foinei, 

Pr/J^r TheTheeucj haue bound the True-men : Now 
could thou and I rob the Theeue;,aiid go merily to Loni 
don, itwouldbe argument for raWecke, Laughter foil 
Monetb,anda good iell for euer. 
/'07WJ. Stand dofe, I heare them fomming. 

JBnterTheiues againe. 

Fal. Come my Maffers, let vs fl\3re,and then toho«ff* 
before day : and the Prmce and Poynes bee not two ar- 
rand Cowards, there's no equity ftirring. There's no moe 
valour in thsl{Poynes,?han ma wtldcDuskfi, 

PriH. Your money 

J P«rt. 1 Villaines; 
s they are PfarmgytheVtmczumdPoywsfftiVfunfht^i^ 
J'bey aSrim amaj, hailing the Booty lishind theat. 
Prmce, Got with much cafe. Now merrily to H(«fet 
^faeTheeucsare fca:tred,and poffcft with fear fo ftr on^, 
ly, that they dare not meet each other : each takes his f«« 
^ow foran Officer. Away good tied, .talfit^e fweitesio 
deatkand Lards thelcaneearth as he walkcs along:wel'^ 
jioi for laughingil Oiould pitty^^hlfflK 
ytf7».'Hb«theRogue763r'di, ^ttwiku. 



StosnalTerha, 



EKterHotjfttrrtfolHi,\reading a Lesttt. 
^utfn ruins owne fan, ml Lord, lauld bee vfeicomettred t4 
Itt tbsre^in refpe^ sfthetet/e 1 fearejottr hmfe. 

He 



ThHrJlTartof^K^ gHenrjtheFmth, 



tfc co«}ld be contented .• Why i$ he not ihcn?iarcrpcft.of 
the louche b«ares our houfe. He (hewcs in chis^he louci 
bis o wne Barne better then he loues our houfe. Let me 
fee I'omc molt.. The pHrpofi jcft vnderinke js.dnn^ffMm 
Why thai'i certainc t'Tis dangerous to take a Coltfc, to 
flrepe,todtinkc : but I tell you (my LouJ foole) out of 
this Ncttlc^Dangcr} we pluckethit Flower, Safety. Thr 
mrfofeyofi vnderuke it dangfrota, the Friemdrjou haue no.' 
tueivHCtrtMntytheTimi' it felfevn/orted,^a»d f our: jf hole 
Plot too lifht, . for the eatsnterpotzx of fogretit an OppaJ!ijo». 
SayyouSOjfay'you fo : 1 fay vnco you.agauie, you area 
(hallow cowardly Hinde. andyon JLyc,, What a lackc- 
brainc is this? I pro'teft^ out plot is as good a plot as cuer 
wras laid ; our Friend true and conllant r A good Plotic, 
goodFticnds.andfullofexpeSatiori: An excellent plot, 
vci y good Friends. \Vhar a Frolty-fpiritcd rogue is this? 
Why, my Lord of Yorkc commends the plot , and the 
general! courfe of the a6f;on. By this hsiid.if 1 were now 
faythisRafcall.Icouldbraine him with his Ladies Fan, 
Is there not my Father, my Viickle, and my Sclfe, Lord 
Edmund Mortimer,my Lord o?Tork?,wd Ospen QlendoUri 
is there not befides, the Dorogl^s i Haue I not all their let- 
ters, to meete me in Atmes by the ninth of the next Mo- 
neth? and arc they notlome of them fet forward already? 
What a Pagan Raltall is this? AnlnfidellJ.Ha, you (hall 
ieenow in very fincerity of Feare and Cold heart, -will he 
to the King, and (ay open all our proceedings, O J could 
diuidemy felfc, and go to buffets^, for fnouing fucha dilli 
«f skim d Milk with fo honourable an Aftion. Hang him; 
let him tell the King wc arc prepared. I will let torwards 
toiiight. 

Zottr hu Lady, 

How now Kate,t tnuft leaue you within thefc two hours, 

L/». O my good Lord, why arc you thus alone / 
For what oftence haue J this fortnight bin 
ft banifli'd woman from my Hkrries bed ? 
TeIIme(fwcet Lord) what is't that takes from thee 
Thy ftomacke,pleafure,and thy golden fleepc ? 
Why doft thou bend thine eyes vpoi\ the eanh ? 
And ftart fo often when thou fitt'rt alone ? - 
Why haft thou loft the frefli blood in thy cheekcs ? 
And glucn my Treafures andmy rights of thee. 
To thicke-cy 'd mufing, and cUrft.meUncholly } 
In my faint-flnmbets, 1 by thcchaue watcht, 
Andiiesrd thce-murmoretales of Iron Warrei : 
Spcake tcarraes ofmanageto thy bounding Steed, 
Cry courage to the field.,." And thou haft talk'd 
OfS;^Uie$,andRctircs;"ftenches,TeniSi 
Of Palizadoes, Frontiers, Pajapets^ 
Of Bafili3kes,.ot Canon, Culuetin,- 
Of Prifoners ranfomc, and of Souldicrs nafne^ 
Andallthecurtentofahcaddy fight; , 
thy Ipirit within thee hath beencfo jCyVarre, 
And thus hatbfo beftirr'd thee inthy Ikcpe, 
That beds ot fweatc hath flood vpon thy Brow, 
Likcbubbles in a laterdifturbcd Streame ; 
And in thy face Qrange motions baue appcary. 
Such as we fee when men reftraine theirbrcath 
Onfomc grcatfodaine hatt.; Owhat portentaare rhcfe? 
Some hcaoie bulincffe hath my Lord in hand. 
And r muft know it : elfe hcl<}ues.me not. 

Hit. . What ho ; Is GittUms with the Packer gone ? 
Stn He K my Lord.an houre agonc. . 
-iHl«.Hathai«f/epl>roughtthQfehorle4fi:QlheShtriffe? 

\ 



55 



Ser. Onehorfe,myXord,hc broughceueanoWi. 

^o/^u WbatHotlc ? A Roane,a crop earc.is it not. 

Ser. It IS my Lord, 

HoL ThatKoancflianbcn^Thranc. Well, Ivwil) 
baxkchimftraight. E/^froaff^bidJSMtZnr lead biro totth, 
into the Parke. 

L,a. Bniheareyou.my Lord. 

flot. What fay'ft Uiou my Lady J 

X'(t. Whatisitcarriesyouaway? 

Hot. W hy,my horfe(my toue^my hor(c. 

La. Oucyoumadrheaded Ape, a WcazellbatbjiW 
fuch a dcale of Spleene, as y ou are^o.fii withi Ih footh lie 
know your bufinefle/f^fr;, that I wjlh I-fcate my Bro- 
chcc.<i/i?i^rr0!7<r doth itirreabout bis Title, and hath lent 
.toryou to line his cnterprizc'. But iFyou go- ■.. ■ 

Hot. So farrc a foot, f fiiall bciweary, Louci 

Lit Come;comc,you Paraquito, anfwer me diredlly 
irnto this quettion that I fhaU.^Skc." Judccdc Uebreake 
thy little finger //<Jri7,if thou wilt not.telineiriie.. 

Hot. Awaj.away you trifiet t toue.IIouciheenot^ 
T care^not for thee Kate:, this is no. world 
To play with Mammets.andto tilt with lipS; 
We muft haue bloodie Nofes.and crack'd GrowneSj 
A nd paffc them currant too. Gods iiie,my horle. 
What fav'ft thou Kate'ivi\\2i wold'ft thou haue wiibine ? 

Z;«.. D o y e not lotie me? Do ye not indeed ? 
Welljdoiiot then. Forfincc youlouemcnor, 
I will not louemy felfc. Do you not louem&il 
Nay>tell me if thou fpeak'ft inielKorno* 

Hot, Cdme, wilt thou fee me ndc? 
And when I am a horfebacke. 1 will iwcare 
I loue thee infinitely. But heatkc you Kate^ 
I muft not haue you hencetotth,queftion me,, 
Whether I go : nor reafon whereabout* 
Whetli^t I muft, I mutt: and to conclude, 
This Euening muft I leaue thce,gent|e Kate. 
Tknowyouwifcbut yetnofurth«wif« 
Then Harry ipercies wife. Coriftant ^ou arc. 
But yet a woman : and for fecrccie,*' 
No Lady clofecLFor 1 -will bcleeuer 
Tnou wilt not vtier what thou do'ft not know, 
And fa farrc wiltl rruft thee,gentleKate,, 

td. Howlofarrc? 

//(If .Not an inch further. Buibarlce you Kate^] 
Whither T go, thither (hall you go too : 
To day will I fet forth, to morrow you* 
Wni this rontent you Kaie i 

Zrf. It muft of force. SxtHHt 



Scena Qmrm^ 



£nttr Prinee:attdPointti, 

Prin; TVW.pretheecomeoutoftbasiatMOmcj^ lend 
nie thy hand to laugh a little; 

Tolnes, Where haB hem Hall ? 

3?m. Witliibree or fourcLoggeirheads j amongft 1 
or fourefcorcHoglheads. I haue founded the vctie bafc 
firing of humility, Sirra,Tam fwotn brother to a leafti of 
Drawers. and can call them by their name$.3sT«>?fJ)»f%, 
and Francis. They.iake italteadv vponthfiir confidence; 
that though I be but Prince of Wales, jet lain jfee King 
of GuTieficrtellingmc flatly I am no proud lack like Falf 
/tafftthoi a Corinthian.a lad of mettle.-.:3 good boy, and 
when 1 am King of England,! fliall command al mc good 
Laddcs in Eaft-chcape. They caff drinking dcepc,;dy- 
•ing Scarlet J and whcnyou breath in youtwaciin^jjhcn 

e ? they 



56 



TheFtrfl Tart ofK^ng Henry the Fourth, 



cbeyxryhemjandbidyouplay it off. To conclude, I am 
i"o good aproficient ia one quarter of an houre.that I can 
drinjce with any Tinker in his owne Languap^c duringmy 
life. I tell thee Nei^^o^x haft loft much honor, that thou 
wcr't no: with me in this action : b\Jt fwcct Ned,io fwee- 
ten which name of Nf(i,I giue thee this peni worth of Su- 
gar, clap: cucn now into my hand by an vndcr Skinker, 
cncihatneucrfpakcotherEnglirn inhislifc, then Eight 
pjtlltags nfidji.xpeKCe, and, Ton art rfckctne : with this fliril 
z6ii\(.'\on,ey4Kon,sy^»c>i Jir, Score a Pinto fBiifiiird in the 
Hdfe Moone ,01 fo. But Ned, to driuc away time till Vd. 
y?4^con)e, Iprytheedocthou Hand in fomeby-roomt, 
whilcl queftion my puny Drawer, to what end hee gaue 
nic the Sugar, and doncuer Icauc calling Tntncis, that his 
TalMo me may be nothing but. Anon : ftcp afide, and lie 
ftiew thee a Prefident. 
Poines. FrAncU. 

PriH, Thou art pcrfciS. 
Posn. Francis. 

Enter'Drawer. 

Ttah. Anon,anon fir ; looke downc tnto the Pomgar- 
WtttRalfe, 

Prince. Come hither Fr.tficif. 

Fran, My Lord. 

Pri». How long haft thou toferuc, Francis? 

Fran. Forfoothfiucyeare$,3ndas much as to— — 

P0i>f. Francii. 

Fran. Anon,anonfir. 

Priu. Fil!cyearcs^ Bctlady a long Leafe tor the clin- 
king of Pewter. But Francis, dareft thou be Co valiant, at 
to play the coward with thy Indenture, & fiiew it a faire 
paiteof heeles,and run from it? 

Fran. O Lord fir, lie be fworne vpoii ali the Books ia 
England,! could finde in my heart. 

Paift. Francis. 

Fran, Anon^anon fir, 

Prin, How old art thou,Fr<JB«> ? 

Fran. Let me fee, about Michaelmas nextl fiialbe— 

Pei». Francis. 

Frait. Anon fir, pray you ftay alittlcniyLord.- 

Prin. Nay but hatke you Francis, for the Sugar thou 
gaueft rae,'twas a peny worth,wss't not > 

Fran. O Lord fir, I would it bad bene two. 

Priif. I will giue thee for it a thoufand pound : Aske 
rocwhcn thou wilt,3nd thou (balthaucit. 

Poin. Francis. 

Frav. Anon,anon. 

JPrin.Anon Francis? No Francis.but to raorrow Fran- 
cis : or Francis,on thurfday :or indeed Francis when tho" 
wilt. But Francis. 

Fran. My Lord. 

Pritf, Wilt thou rob this Leathctneletkin, Chriftall 
button, Not-patedjAgat ring, Piike flocking, Caddice 
garter. Smooth tongue,Spaniili pouch. 

Fran. O Lord firjwho do you mcane r 
, Priir. Why then your browne Baftardis youronety 
drinke : for lookc you Fr3ncis,your white Canuas doub- 
let will fullcy. In B.irbary fir,it cannot come, to fo much, 

Fran. What fir f 

Pcin. Francis. 

Prm. Away yonRogue,doftitiouhcare them call? 
fffirethsf both Citllhl'n, the DrtW/erJiands amazed, 
vet ki-orvhigV'bichffay logo. 

, Enter Vintner 
Viiit^ .Whatyftand'll thou ftill^and hear'ft fuch a Cal- 



ling PLooketoihcGutfts within. My Lord, oldcSir 
lehu with halfe a dozen more,arc at the doorc : fliall ] ]« 
them in? 

Pria. Let than alone awhilcjand then open the door? 
Poines, 

Enter Peinet. 

Pom.^Mon,mon{v. 

Prin. Sirra, FalJ}«ffe and the reft oftheTheeucs,ateat 
ths doorejftiall we be merry ? 

Poin. As mcrrie as Crickets my Lad. Butharkeyee 
What cunning match haue you made with this ieft ofthe 
Drawer? Come,what's thciflue? 

Prin.l am now of all humors,that liauc flicwed them. 
fclucs humors, fincc the old dayes of goodman yiJam, to 
the pupil! age of this prcfent twelue a dock at midnight. 
What's a clocke Francis ? 

Fran. Anon,anonfir. 

Prin. That eucr this Fellow fhould haue fewer words 
thcnaParret, andyet thefonncofaWoman. Hisindu- 
flry is vp-ftaires and down-ftaircs, his eloquence the par- 
cell o*^a reckoning. I am not yet offcrcies mind/he Hot- 
Ipurre ofthe North, he that killes me fome fixe or feaucn 
do7.cn of Scots at a Brcakfaft, waflies his hands.and faies 
to his wife ; Fie vpon this quiet life, I want worke. O my j 
fwcet H.pry fayes flie, how many haft thou kill'd to day? 
Gi.ic my Roane horfe a drench (faycs hee) and anfweres, 
fome fourtecne,an houre after : a triiSe.a tr.iflc. J prethee 
call mFal(}ajfe,l\e play Percy, and that danm'd Brawne 
fhall play Dame C^lortimer his wife,/?;»»,f3ycs the tlrun- 
kard. Call in Ribs,call in Tallow. 

Er.ter Falfiaffe. 

P««. 'Welcome lackcjwherc baft thou beene? 

Fal. A plague of all Cowards I f3y,iand a Vengeance 
too, marry and Amen. Giue me a cup of Sacke Boy. Eic' 
I Icade this lifelong, He fowe nether ftoc'.-es, and mend 
them too. A plagueof all cowards. GiuemcaCap of 
Sacke, Rogue. Islhereno Vertne extant i 

Prin. Didft thouncQci: fee Titan kifle a difli of Butter, 
pittifuU hearted Titan that melted at the fwcete Taleof 
the Sunne?Ifthondidft,thcn.behold that compound. 

Fal. YouRogue^hcere'j Lime in this Sacke too:th«rc 
is nothing but Roguery to befound in Villanous manjyet 
a Coward is worfc then a Cup of Sack with lime. A vil- 
lanous Coward, gothywayesoldlacke', die when thou 
wilt,if manhood.good manhood be not forgot vpon the 
face of theearth,thenaml a ftiotten HeriTng : there liocs 
not three good men vnhang'd in England, & one of them 
is fat,and gro wes oId,God helpe the wbile,a bad worldl 
fay. I would I werea Wcauer.I couldfing all manner of 
foiigs. A plague ofall Cowards,! fay ftill. 

Prin. HownowWooIfacke,whatmnttcryou? 

Fal. AKings Sonnef Ifl do notbeate thee out ofthy 
Kingdomc with a dagger of Lath, and driue all thy Sub- 
ic(5ls afore tlice like a fiockc of Wilde-geefe, Ileneuct 
wcarchaireon my face move. You Prince of Wales? 

Prin, Whyyou horfon round manrwhat's the matter? 

Fal. Are you not a Coward? Anfwer me to that, aird 
?«■»« there?' " ' 

Prin. Ye fatch paunch, and yeccsUmeeCowarAlfe 
ftab thee, 

Fal. I call thee Coward ? He fee thee damn'd ere I call 
the Coward; but! would giuea thoufandpound Icould 
runasfaftasthotfcanft. Youarefiraight enoughinthe 
flioulderj, you care not who fees your backe : Call you 

. that 



^heFirJlTa rt of Henry ihe Fourth. 



57 



that backing of your friends? a plague vpon fuchbac. 
king; giuc mc them that will face me. GiucmeaCup 
of Sack, I am a Rogue if I drunke to day. 
. Frittce. O Villainc^ thy Li£pes iit (carce wip'dj fince 
,thoudrunk'ftIaft.> 

Wtklfi, All's onie for that. Htdrinkes^. 

Aplagucof r.11 Cowards (lill.fay I, 

¥ri>!ce. What's the matter ? ; 

TalJI. What's the matter? here be foure of vs, hane 
ta'ne a thoufand pound this Morning, 

Pmce. Where is hjacl^ f where is it ? 

Wdfi' Where is it ? taken ftom vj^it is; a hundred 
vponpoorefoure of vs. 

Fn»ce. What, a hundred, man? 

Ealfi. I am a Rogue,if I were not athalfc Sword with 
a dozen of them two houres together. 1 haue fcapcd by 
miracle. 1 am eight time* thtuft through the Doublet, 
fourc through the Hofe, my Buckler cue throug'n and 
tnrough, my Sword hackt likeaHand-faw,tfcc^y7^»«?w. 
Ineucrdealt better fince I was a man: all would not doe. 
A plagi'c of all Cowards: let them fpeakc; if they fpeake 
more or lefTe then truth^they are villaincs, and the fonnes 
ofdarkncde. 

frince. Spcake (irs,how was it ? 

Ctd, We fourc fst vpon foroe dozen. 

Wttlji' Sixtccnc.at Icaft.my Lord-. 

Ctid, And bound them, 

Peta. No,no, they were not bound, 

Valji. You Rogue, they were bound, eueryman of 
them, or I am a lew e!fc,an Ebrew lew. 

Cixd. As wc were ftiating/ome fixe or feuen frcfii men 
fetvponvs. 

Talft. And vnbound the reft , and then come in the 
other. 

Tr'mce. What^fbuglit yee with them all ?' 

Faljl. All ? I know not what yee call all : but if I 
fought not with fiftie of them, 1 am a bunch of Radifn : 
if there were not two or thtec and fiftie vpon poore olde 
lackey then am I no iwo-legg'd Creature. 

Pom. Pray Heaucn, yoa liaue not murtheied fome of 
them. . 

falft. Nay, that's paft praying for, I haue pepper'd 
two of them: Two 1 am furel haue payed, two Rogues 
inBuckrom Sutes. 1 tell thee what, Hal, if I tell ihce a 
Lye,fpit in my facc,call me Horfc; thou knowefl my olde 
word: here I lay .and thus Ibore my point; foure Rogues 
in Buckrom let driuc at me. 

Priwcf. What/ourc? thou fayd'ft but two.cuen now. 

Falfl. Foure Wit/,! told thcc fourc:. 

fern. l,I,he faid foure. 

Ttilfl. Thefe foure came all a-froat,and mainely thruft 
4t mc ; I made no more adoe. but lookc all their feucii 
points in my Targuet.thus. 

frwce. Seuen P why there were but foure.cuen now, 

ftdfti In Buckrom. 

pein, IjfourCjin Buckrom Sutes. 

ftilfi-. Seucn,by thefe Hilts,or I am a Villaine elfe- 

Trift. Prethee let him aionc,we (liali haue more anon. 

J'rf^. Doeftthouhearcmc,H«// 

PrtH. Land markc thcc too, Jack^^ 
Falfl. Doc fojforit is worth the iiRningtoo: theft: 
nine in Buckroni,th3t I told thee of. 
frin. SOjtwo more alreadie. 
Falfi. Their Points being broken^ 
Pow. Downc fell his Hofe. 

^ttlfi. Began to giueroe ground : butl followed sne 



clofcjcme in foot and handjand with a thought,feuen of 
ihce'eueulpay'd, 

Prin. O jr.onflrous ! elcuen Buckrom men grawne 
out of two ^ 

Tatfi^ EutastheDeuill woiJd haue it, three mif-bc- 
gotten Knaues/m Kendall Greene, came at my Back, and 
let driue at me; for it was fo darke^ffe/.that thou could'ft 
not ftc ihy Hand. 

Prin. Thefe Lyes are like the Father that begets them, 
grortc as a Mountaine,optn,palpablc. Why thou Clay- 
bray n'd GutSjthou Knotty, pated Foole.thou Horfon ob 
fccnc greafie Tallow Catch, 

Fttlfi, What,arithouro2dr art thou mad? isnot;he 
truth,thc truth ? 

Priu. Why, how ctfuld'rt thou know theie men in 
Kendall Greene, when i: was fo darke, thou could'P; not 
fee thy Hand i Come.tell vs your reafon:what fay'P. thou 
to this? 

Poin. Comc,you! reafon /jc^^ycurreafon, 

F.tlfti What,vpon compullion ? No : were I at the 
Strappado, or all the Racks in the World, I. would not 
rellyou on compulfion. Gi'ue you a reason on tomi-ulfi- 
on ? If R.ca!ons were as plentie as Black-bertiesJ v>^ouid 
giue noman a Realbn vpon compulfionjl. 

Prin. He be no longer guiltie of this fmnc. This fan- 
g'jineCow.ird,tbis Berf j>rcfler,this Horf-bac''.-breakcr, 
this huge Hill of Fiefh. 

^Falfl. AwayyouScariieling,youElfe-skin,you dried 
Neats tongue, Bulles-piffcll, you ftocke.firti:0 for breth 
to vtter. What is like thee? You Tailors'y ard,y ou Hicath 
you Bow-cafcyou vile ftandingtucke. 

PrtTi, Well, breath a-while,and then to't againe • and 
when thou haft tyt'd thy fclfe in bafe comparifons^ hearc 
mcfpeakebuttbusi 

"Pain. Markciacke» 

T>ri». Wc twojfaw you foure fet on foure andbownd 
them,and were Mafters of their Wealth : mark now how 
aplaineTalelhallputyoudownc. Then did vje two, fet 
on you foiire,and with a word, outfac'd you from your 
prize, and haue it : yca,and can (bew it you in the Hcufe . 
And FAlJ}ajfe,yoa laried your Guts away as nimbly, with 
as quickc dexteritie,and roared for mercy, and ftill ranne 
and roar'd, as eucrl heard BuU-Calfe. What a Slaueart 
thou, to hacke thy fword as thou haft done, and then fay 
it was in fij?,hr. What trick? what deuiccS? what ftarting 
hole canft thou now findoutjto l"dc thee from this open 
and apparant fliatKc ? 

Poines. Come, let's heaie lacke : What tricke haft 
thou now? 

Fal. I knew ye as well as he that made yc. Why hears 
ye my Mafters, was it for me to kill the Heire apparant? 
Should i furne vpon the true Pif ince? Why , thou knovveft 
I am as valiant as Hsrcules : but bcwate. Inftind, the Lion 
will not touch the true Prince : Infl, 3 is a great matKer. 
I was a Coward &n [nftin&. I fhall thinkethe bejfsr of 
my felfe, and thee, during my life : I, foi a valiacE Lion, 
and thou for a true Prince. But Lads.I am glad you haue 
tb*Mony . Hoftc-Te.clap to the doores: watch Eo night, 
pray to morrow. Gallants, Lads,Boyes, Harts of Gc-icS, 
all the good Titles of Fellowfcip corac to you . What, 
(hall we be merry? fliall we haue, a P!ay extcmpory. 

Prsn. Content,£nd the argument Iball be^ thy tunijig 
away. 

Fat. AjHo more of that K<3//,and thoulousf^ me. 
e>it(r Hofiefe. 

Hojt. My Lord, the Piincc ? 

Pfirt. 



-- < 



58 



PriH. How now Doy Lady the Hottcfl'e , what fay'ft 
.thou CO ere ? 

hojlejfe. Matry,my lord, there ba Noble man cFthe 
Comt at doorc would fpeakc with you: hce fayes,hee 
comes from your Father. 

Prw. Giue him as much as will make him a Royall 
m3rf,and fend him backs againe to my Mother. 

FAlfi. What manner of man is hce ? 

Hopejfe. An old man. 

F<»//?. What doth Crauitie out of hi? Bed at Midnight? 
Shall I giuehimhis anfwere) 

Prin.. Prethee doe lAc^f^ 

TaIJi, 'Faith.and Ilc.fcndhirn packing. Exit, , 

Prince, Now Sirs : you fou<^ht fiiiic ; To did you 
Peto, fo did yo\X Bardnt.- youari Lyons too, you ranne 
away vpon inftinft j you will not togch the true Prince;- 
no, fie. 

Bard. 'Faith,! rartne when I (aw Ctliers runnc. 

Pritt. Tell mee now in earned, how came Fnlfiajfes 
Sword fo hackt i 

Peto. Why,he hackt tt \/ith his Dagger, and faidjhee 
would iwcare truth out of England.but liee would make 
youbeleeue it was done in fight,andperftvaded vs to doe 
the like, 

ZBard' Yea,and to tickle out Nofes with Spear-gralTe, 
C3 make them bleed, and then to beflubbcr our garments 
with it, and iwcave it was the blood of true men, I did 
thatldid not this feuen yteres before, I bluflK to hcare 
his monftrous deuices. 

Pria, O Vdlaine,thouftoIcftaCup of Sicke eigh- 
teeneyeeres agoe, and were taken with the banner, and 
euer fince thou haft bluflit extempore : thou hadft fire 
and fword on thy fide, and yet ihou rsnft away ; what 
inRindl hadfi thou for it ? 

"Bard. My Lord, doe you fcc thcfe Meteors ? doe you 
behold thcfe Exhalations ? 

Prin. 1 doe. 

"Bard, What ihinke you they portend? 

Prin. Hot Liucrs,and cold Purfes. 

'Btrd. Choler,my Lord.if rightly taken, 

Trin. No,if tightly taken, Halter, 

Enltr Pdfiafe. 

Hcere comes leane /'<«c^(?,hecre comes bare-bone. How 
now my fweet Creature of Bombaft, how long is't agoe, 
/<»ci^,fince thou faw'ft thine ownc Knee ? 

Palfi. My owne Knee ? When T was about thy yeerei 
{Hal) I was not an EaglcsTalcnc in the Wafle, 1 could 
haueerept into any Aldcrmans Thumbe-Ring : a plague 
of fighing and griefe, it biowes a man vp like a Bladder. 
There's villanous Newes abroad : heere was Sir lehn 
'Brahy from your Father ; you mufl goc to the Court in 
the Morning, The fan:e mad fellow of the North, Pir^-; 
and hee o\ Wales, that gauc e-^wrfww the Baftinado, 
and made Lwifir Cuckold, and fwore the Deuill his true 
Lieoc-man vpon the Croflc of a Welch->hooke; yvhata 
plague call you him? 

Pair). 0,C/endower, 

Talfi. Ovfift^Oivoi ; the fame, and his Sonne in Law 
LMortimer, and old Werthnmlierlatid, and the fprightly 
Scot of Scots, Dcw^g/rf/, that runnes a Hotfc-backc vp a 
Hill perpendicular. 

Prin. Hce that rides athigh fpecde.and with aPifioU 
killi a Sparrow .^ying,' 

f<j//?. You h?ue hit It. 



TheFirjhTart o/E^n^ Henry th&FourtL 



.Print So did he neuer the Sparrow, 

,falfi. Well, that Rafcall hath good ifiettil] ill hinji 
hce will not runne. 

PriH, Why.whac % RafcaU art thou then.toprayfe him 
fo for running? 

iV/?. A Horfe-backe CycCuckoe) bul a foot hee wilt 
not budge a foot. 

PW/f. Yes /4r;^f,vpon inftin^.. 
Talfi, I grant ye.vpon inftinft: Well,hee is there too, 
andonec^ffj'rf<ti^<',and a thoafaod blcw-Cappes more. 
Worcella itfiolne away by Night : thy Fatheri Beard is 
turn'd white with the Newes j you may buy Land now 
as chcape as (linking Mackrell, 
^ FriH. Then 'tis like,if there come a hot Sunne.and this 
duill buflfetting hold, wee fhall buy Maidcn-hcadi as 
they buy Hob-nay les, by the Hundreds^. 

Taia, 3y the MafTc Lad.thou fay'ft true.it is like wee 
(hall haue good trading that way. But tell mc //i»/. art 
not thou horrible afcar'd? thou being Heirc appatan^ 
could the Woridpicke thee out three fuch Encmyes afi 
gaine.asthat Fiend I>«»^/*, that Spirit Pct'9', an J that 
Deuill G/fWflwr.' Art not thou horiiblc afraid ? Doth 
not thy blood thfH at it ? 
Prin. Not a whit: IlackeromcofihyinfiindK 
FAlfi. Well thou wilt be horriblcchiddc to morrow, 
when thou commefl to ihy Father ; if thou doe loue jnc, 
pradble an anfwctc. 

Prm, Doe thou ftand fonny Father,3nd examine met 
vpon the particulars of my Life. 

Talfi, Shall 1? content : This Chayre (hall. bee mj 
State* this Dagger my Scepter, and this Cuihion ray 
Crowne. 

P.rin. Thy Scatc is taken for a Ioyn'd-StooIc,thy Col- 
den Scepter for a Leaden Dagger, ^ad thy precious rich 
Crowne.tor a pictifull bald Crowne. \ 

Falfl, Wcll,and the fire of Grace be not quite out of 
thee now fiialt thou be moued. Giue me a Cup of Sacke 
to make mine eyes looke reddc, that it may be thought! 
haue wept, for I muft fpeakc in palTion, and I will doc it 
in King Cambyfes vainc, 

pTw. WclljhecrcismyLcgge. 
Fri/iiF. And hccre is my fpeech: ftand afideNobilitie, 
Hofleffe, This is excellent fport.yfaith, 
Titlfi. Wcepe not, fweet Qucenc, for trickling tearea 
areviine, 

Hoflefe. O the Fadicrjhowhec holdes his counte- 
nance ? 

F<»^'?.ForGods fake Lords.conuey my truftfuUQrecm 
Forteares doe ftop thcfioud-gatesof hereyes* 

Bcfiefe. O rarc,he doth it as like one of tbefc harfosry 
Players,ascucrlfee. 

falji. Peace good Pint-pot,peaccgoodTicklc.braiiia, 
^rfrry, Idoenotonelymaruell where thou fpendeftiBy 
time ; but alfo, how thou art accompanied : For ihou^ 
the Caniomile.ihe more it is trodcn.ilie fafier it gtowcs: 
yet Youth, the more it is wafted, the fooner it wearcs, 
ihou art my Sonne: T haue partly thy Mothers Word, 
partly my Opinion ; but chiefely, a villanous tritk J oi 
thine Eye,3nd a fooiifli hanging of thy nether Lippe^' 'lail 
doth warrant me. If then thou be Sonne to mee, hciie 
lyeththepomt: why, being Sonne to me, art thou fa 
poyntedatf Sh.ill the bleffcd Sonne of Heaucn prouca 
Micher, andeaceSlack-bcrryes?' aqueftion not to bee 
askt. Shall the Sonne of England proue a Thceft , and 
takePurfes*? aqueftiontobeaskt. There is a thing, 
/ftrr/, which thou hait often heard of.an(t it islcno twne to 

many 



6c The Firft ^ art of Kmg Henry the FourlL 



jHeJf. His Letters beares his mindc,not 1 his mindc. 
rvor. ] prctheetdlaie,dothhekcepchisBed? • 
.MeJ. He did.my Lo.d,foure dayes ere.I fet fottho 
And atlhe time of my departure thence. 
He was much fcar'd by his Phyfician. 

f*V. il would the flate of time had fiift beenc whole. 
Ere he by fickneflc had bcene vifited : 
Hii health wasneucrbeiierworth then now. 

Bot^.Sick? now? groope now? this fiekncsdothinfeft 
The very Life- blood of our Enterprife, 
'lis C3rchinghithcr,eueri to our Campe. 
He writes me here^that inward ficknefie. 
And that his friends by deputation 
Could not fo foorte bcdia wiie: nor did he thinl,£ it meet. 
To lay fo dangerous and deare a tru/t 
On any Souk rcmoudjbut on his ownei 
Ycc doth he giae vs bold aduertiftmcn'ri 
That with our fmall coniuntlion wc (iiould on^ 
To fee how Fortune is di'poi'd to v s t 
For,as he wtites.thcre is no quailing now, 
Becaule the King is certainely poffeft 
Of aIlourpurpo(€s.':,\Vhatiay yoiitoit ? 

War, Youi Fathers frt^ncfle is a niayme to vs. 

Jht^. A periiloiisGafh.a very Limme loptoff j 
And ycCjUiiaithjii; Jsjj/jchis prcfent want 
Seemes more then wefhall fiilue it. 
\\ etc it good;ro fet tht exa6l wealth of all'.our ftcitcs 
All at oneCaPi i To fct-fo rich a mayne 
OnthenicehazardofonedonbtfuU houre. 
It were not good ; for therein fhould we. rcade 
The very Bottome,and the Souleot Hopcj 
The'^erv Lift.ihc very vtmoli Bound 
Of all our fortunes. 

Dowg. Faith,and('. -wee dioufd. 
Whcre.nowremainesa'i'wcec rcuerfion. 
AVe ma/ boldly fpeit'S^vpotf the hope 
Of vvhat IS to conic m : 
A comfort of rctyrsmentliues in tliis. 

TJotjp. A Kaniieuous,a.Home.to (lycmno, 
If that thcD'cuill and Mifchance lookebigge 
Vpon the Msydenhead of our Affaires. 

fyor/Batycil would your EatherLKaiibccne.hc:«: 
rhc O ulicie and Hcire of our Attempt 
Brookes no dittihon';. IrwIUbe thought 3 
By fo.nsjthat know not-why he is away, 
That wifedonic;loya!tie,and mecre didike 
of our proceedii;}',s,kcpt.the Earle from hcncff> 
And thinke,how ftich aivappiehenfion 
May turnethetydcof fcarefull Faition, 
And brecdc a kindcof queilion'm our caufe : 
For wcil you know.wce cf the offring fide, 
Mr.ft kcepe aloofe Ii om Oiid atbirrement. 
And Hop iiU light- holes, cue vyloope/romwhcnce 
i| 1 b.t eve oi rcafoii may jnie in vpon vs : 

!1 (li ; xbfcncc nZ your f-athcr drawcs a Curtainc, 
Thai fncwes.the igiioranc a kiiide of fearc. 
Before iioLdrcaiTiUif, 
j \hiR ; Touitraync too farrc. 
■ .1 rathcr';of bis abfcncemake thisvfe; 

ilvlen^i^a LuHrcand more qrcac Opinion, 
i^yitCCtiDarc to your great Lnterprizc, 
Th£'f'trt',Vc Eark were here : iormcn mud thinliCj 
J.IjJVVc.w.ithpjthishcIpccanmakeaHead 
'io p.'.ijh agauill the Kingdomc ; with his helpc, 
\Vc ilvill o'rc-turne it topfic-ttiruy dcwue : 
Yet .^1! goes w.cli,ye:aUour ioynts are whole. 



Jjcwgv As heart can thinkc : 
There is tioc fuch a word fpoke of in Scotland, 
AtthiiDicame of Feare.- 

Mttter Sir Richard VisriiB», 

'Notp My Coufin Tifr^iJur^welconieby my Soule, 

Firw.Pray God my newesbe worth awclcome,Loii, 
The Eatk of Wtftmcrland,fcuen thoufand firong. 
Is marching hither-wards, vvith-Prince lahn. 

Ho'ij^, No harrae: what more? 

Virn. And further, 1 hauc learn'd, 
' The Kinghimfelfe in perfon hath fpt forih^ 
Ot hiihet-wards intended fpecdily, 
"VVithftrongandmightiepreDaration: 

Hot [p. He fhali be welcome too. 
Where i? his Sonne, 

The mmble'.footed Nlad-C3p,Prince of WaieS^ 
And his Cumrades.thatda&thc Wdrld afidc, 
And bid it pafie? 

Tern. Airfarninir,aHin Arme?; * 
All plum'd like Ertridgesj that with the Winde 
Bayted like Eagies,haiting lately bath'dj 
Glittering in Golden Co'ates.likc Imaged, 
As fail of fpjrit as the Moneth of May, 
And gorgcouips theSunncat Mid-lummef» 
V/anton as youthful! Goates,wildc a* youngBulIs^ 
i faw young Hnny vyith his Beuer on. 
His Cufiies on his thfghcs'jgallantly arm'<}. 
Rile from the ground hkefeathercd t^w^. 
And vaultcd_wich fuch.eafc into his Scat, 
As if sn Angcil dropt. downe from the.Clouds, 
Toturnf .arid.windc a fierie, Ptgafnf 
And wic<h the World with Noble Hojfeiaanfiiip« 

Hotfp l^iiniore,nomore,. 
Worle then ine i.unne iaMarckf 
This prayfe doth'nouriih Agues a le'ttliemcome. 
Theyrcomc like Sacrifices in theirtrimmc. 
And tothefire-ey'd Maid of.fmoa'ki.ftW^rre, 
Al! hoi,3tKl blecding,w!llw.ce,rtflsrjheai.i 
Inc maj'lecix^f-w iTiallonhis Altartoj 
Vp to the earei i;i blood. I am on.fiire,- 
To hearetliis vi'olvreprizalL'isfonighi 
And yet not oursi Cpn!.<?,V t me take niyjKorff, 
Whois to'bcararnc Ukea f hunder^boU,' 
AgainfiiHe bofome-ofthe Prince oG W.al.cs<^ 
Ha^rf t.o-.L'K,"i7, fhaliiiotHorfe t o H or fc 
McetCjandne.'reipsctjtill.o.nedrop-do.vvo.eaCioarfeJ 
0}),th:»i:-.f7/;«^ff>?«',W.ere;cpmc« 

Fwi. Tli.?reJsmoTene7,'cs? 
I learned in Worccftct,as 'rode along, 
Hc'carinot ciraw.his Powerthis four'ct(;encj"d3y?5. 

Potpg-. Tbat.'s tliC.worUTidingsvthat ti heareiOJ 
yet; 

rVor. J.b}' my, fsiih.that beares a frcfiy found 
Hotjp. Whai-iuay the; Kings wholCi'Battaile rcacft 

YUtO ? 

rVr, To chirty tfioufand, 

Wdt. Forty let it bcj: 
My Father and Ghndorver.WxWgho'^ awrsy* 
Th'powres ofvs,m3y fetueJogreataday, 
Come.let vstakc a niufter rpsedily j 
Doonicf:lav is neere; dye all,dyc merrily* 

Vow. Talkenotofnying lamoutoffeare 
Of deathjor dsatUs haadjior this onshalfe y earc. 

gxsisnt Omner.t 
ScenA 



The HrftTart ofK^g Heury the Fourths 



67 



•? 



ScanaSecmdao 



Enter Faljiafe and BArda/^h, 

Talfi. Sirdo!ph,^et thee before to Couentry, fill me a 
Bottle of Sack, our Souldiers (hall march throoghrwee'ic 
to Sutcon-cop-hill co Night. 

"BArd. Will you giuc me Money, Captained 

Fdls}. Lay out,lay out. 

'£ard. This Bottle makes an Angell. 

F/c/y?. Andifit-doc, take it for thy labour : and if it 
make twentic , take there all, IlcaniwcretheCoynage. 
Cid my Lirutcnsn: /'.tj mce:? me at the Towncs end. 

"Bard. 1 will Captainc : farewell. Exit. 

Tdj{, If I be not afliam'd of my Souldiers, I am a 
fowc't-Curnet : I haiie mif-vj'd the Kings Prefle dam- 
nably. I haue got, in exchange of a hundred and fikie 
Souldiers, three hundred andodde Pounds. IprciTemc 
none but good Ho«fe.hoidcrs,Yeomens Sonnes:enquirc 
meoutcontraftcdBatchelers, fuch as had becne ask'd 
twice on thc-£anes; fuch a Commoditie of warme flaues, 
ashadaslieuehearc theDcuill, as a Drumme ; fuch as 
feare the report of a Caliucf.worfe ihcn a ftruck-Foolc, 
bra hurt wilde-Ducke. Iprcft me none but fuch Toftcs 
and Butter.with Hearts in their Bellyes nobiggerthen 
Pimics heads, and" they hsue bought out their feruices: 
And now, my whole Charge confifts of Ancients, Cor- 
pot£ls,Licutenants,Gentlemen of Companies, Slaues as 
ragged as Luz^rta in the painted Cloth,where the Glut- 
tonsDogges licked his Sores; and fuch. as indeed were 
neucr Souldiers, but dif-catded vniuft Seruingmen,youn- 
gerSonnes to younger Srothers.reuoltcd Tap fiers and 
Oftlers.Tradc-falne, the Cankers of a calme World,and 
long Peace, tenne times more dis-honorablc ragged, 
then an cld-fac'd Ancient; and fuchhaue I to fill vp the 
roomes of them that haue bought out their feruices: that 
you would thinke, that I had a hundred and fiftie totcer'd 
ProdigalIs,lateiy come from Swme-keeping,from eating 
DraffeandHuskes, A mad fellow met ma on the way, 
and told me.I had unloaded all the Gibbets,and preft the 
dead bodyes. No eye hath fecneuichskar- Crowes: He 
not march through Couentry withthem,that's flat. Nay, 
and the Villaincs march wide betwixt the Lcgges, as if 
tbeyhad Gyues on ; for indecde, I had the moli of them 
out of Prifon. There's not a Shirt and a halfc in all my 
Company ; and the halfe Shirt is two Napkins tackt to- 
gether, and thrownc oucr the fliouldcrs like a Heralds 
Coat,without fleeues; and the Shirt, to fay the truth, 
Aolne fiommyHoll of S. Alboncs, or the Red-Nofc 
Inne-keeper of Dauintry Bui that's all onc.thcy'Ie findc 
Liitnen enough on euery Hedge. 

EtitCT the Prince ^And the Lord effyejimerltind. 

frinct. How now bLowne lackj how now Quilt ? 

Falfl. What Htill How noiw mad Wag, what a Deuill 
do'ilthouinWacwickfliire? My good Lord of VVeft- 
merlandj'cry you mercy, I thought yourHonour had al- 
ready beene at Shrewsbury. 

JVefi. 'faith.Sir/oAw.'tismore then time thar I were 
tnere.andyoutoo: but my Powers are there aireadie. 
The King,l can tell you, lookcs for vs all : we mufl away 
ftll to Night. 



F*!fi. Tut,neuer feare mc,l am as vigilant as a Cai,t6 
fteale Creame. 

Prince. I thinke to fteale Creame indeedjfor tliy theft 
hath aireadie made thee Butter : but tell aie,/<»c;^,whofc 
fellowes are thefe that come after ? 

Falfi. Minc,f/4/,mine. 

Prince, 1 did neucr fee fuch pittifuU Rafcalt. 

Faljl. Tut,tut,good enough to toffe: foode for Pov/- 
der, foode for Powder: tbey'le fill a Pit,as well as better: 
tufii man.mortall mcn.mortail men, 

Wejim. I, but S it lohn, me thinkes they arc exceeding 
poore and bare,too beggarly. 

Talji, Faithjfor their pouertie,! know not where they 
had that 5 and for their barencffe, J am fare they neucr 
Icarn'dthatofmc. 

Pr/wf.No.Uc be fwoi-'^.vnleire you call rhrce fingers 
on the Ribbes bate. But f... J.makehaftejftfrcjr is already 
in the field. 

F,tlfi, What jj the King encamp'd? 

ffeflm. Hce is. Sir hhay I feare wee fiiall (lay too 
long. 

FalJI. vVelljto the latter end of a Fray, and the begin- 
ning of a Feafl, fits a dull fighter, and a IsecneGuefta 

Exiunt. 



Scoena Tertia, 



Sr.terHotjfiisr^K'-srcfliir.Dowglaf^And 

fjotjp. Wcc'Ie fight with him to Night, 

fyorc. It may not be. 

D9tv£. You giue him then aduaniage. 

Z,'er>j. Not a whit, 

F.ei[j). Why fay^you fo } lookes he not for fiippJy? 

Z^er», So doc wee. 

Hotjp. His a certainCjOurs is doubtfuEI, 

f^grc. GoodCoufifl be aduis'd^ftirte net tonight< 

Ver», Doe not.my Lord. 

Doo'g. You doetjot counfailfi well ; 
You fpeake it out of feare,and cold heart. 

Vcm. Doe me no (lmdcT,DeTvj^Cu: by my Life, 
And I dare well maiataine it with my Life, 
If wcll-rcfpe<fted Honor bid m-son, 
1 hold as little counfaile with weake feare, 
A* you,myLord,or any Scot that this day !iUCJ« 
Let it be feeue tomorrow in the Batiellj 
Which of vs fearcs. 

Do)V£. Yea,or to night. 

ZJcrn. Content. 
Horjp. Tonightjfayl. 

Vera. Come,come,»t may noibe. 
I wonder much,bcing me of iuch great leading as youare 
That you fore-fee nGt what impedimensj 
Drag backc our expedition : certaine Horfc 
Cf my Coufin yermns arc not yet come Yp, 
Your Vnckle fVarcefiers Horfe came but C:; day. 
And now their pride and mettall isaflecpe, 
Their courage with hard labour tame and dull. 
That not a Horfe is halfe the halfe of himfelfe,, 

Hotjp. So arcthe Horfcs of the'Enemie 
In gencrall iourney bated,3nd brought low : 
The better part of ours are full cf icft^ 

f s War. The 



5 



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"^IheFkfifPdfnfKjn^HenYftheFmtk 



Wtftc. The numoct of the Kiirg ercecdeth our; : 
FijcGodk fakerCounn.ftsy till all comeio. 

Tbt Trumpet fcunii a Parley, Enter Sir 
Waltsr'Blmt. 



"Blmt. 1 come with gracious ofFsrs from ;hs lung, 
Ifyouvouchfafemchearing,and refpcfl. 

liotjp. Welcomc.Sir fTalcer Tluut .• 
And would to God you were of cur determinat'cn. 
Some of vs loue you well : and eucn thole fomc 
Enuie your great deferuings, and goodnamy, 
Becaufc you arc not of our qualitie. 
But (land againft vs like an Enemic. 

!S/«wt.And Heaucn defcnd.but ftlll I fliould ftand fo. 
So long as cut of Limit, and true Rule, 
You {land againft anoyntcd Maicftic. 
But to my Charge. 
The King hath fent tclrnow 
The nature of your Gricfes.and whereupon 
You coniure from the Breft of Ciuill Peace, 
Such bold Hoftilitie, teaciiing his dutious Land 
Audacious Crueltie. If that the King 
Haue any way your good Defcrts forger. 
Which hcconfclTethio be man, fold. 
He bids you name your Gricfes,and witli all fpced 
You Oiall haue your dcfires,with inieceft ; 
And Pardon abfolute for your felfe, and thcfe. 
Herein mis-led^by your fuggcflion. 

UotJJ). TheKingiskindc: 
And well wee know, the King 
Knowes r.t what timv co promife,\vhen to pay. 
My Father.ray Vnckle.and my felfe. 
Did giue him that fameRoyaltic hewcares: 
.And when he was no: fixe and tweniie ftrong, 
Sicke in the Worlds regard,wretched,and low, 
Apoorevnminded Out-law, fneaking home. 
My Father gaue him welcome to the fliore : 
And when he heard him fwearcand vow to God, 
He came bu: to be Duke of Lancafler, 
To fue bis Liueric,and begge his Peace, 
With tearcs of Inncccncie,and tearmes of Zealc; 
My Father, in kinde heart and pitty mou'd. 
Swore him adiRance.and perform'd it too, 
Now.when the Lords and Batons of the Realrae 
Perceiu'd Northrtmberlami did leane to him. 
The more and Idle came in with Cap and Knee, 
Met him in Boroughs.Cttits, Villages, 
Attended him on Bridges, ftood in Lanes, 
Layd Gifts before him,proffer'd him their Oathcs, 
Gaue him their Heires,as Pages followed him, 
Euen at the heelcs.m golden multitudes. 
He prcfcntly.as Grcatnifle knowcs it felfe. 
Steps me a little higher then his Vow 
Made to my Father.whilehis blood was poore» 
Vpon the naked (hore at Raucnfpurgh : 
And now(forfooth) takes on him toreforme 
Some cciiaine Edids.and fome ftrait Decrees, 
That lay coo hcauie on the Common- wealth; 
Cryes out vpon abufsSjfccmcs to weepc 
Oucr his Countries Wrongs: and by this FacCj 
ThisfccmingBrowof luflice.did hewlnnc 
The hear:s of all that hcc did angle for. 
Proceeded furthcr,cutmc off the Heads 
Of all the Faunritcs,that the abfent King 
In deputation Icfi bthlnde hiro hecre. 



Wnen hcc was perfonall in the ItHa Wiue. 
. Timt. Tut,lcamenoitoheatethrs. 

Hotjp. Then to the point. 
Jn fliorc time after, hee depos'd the King, 
Soonc after that,depriu*d him of his Life : 
And in the neck of ihat.task't the whole State. 
To make that worfc,fufFet'd hia Kinfman OHarehi 
Who ij,if cuery Owner were placM, 
Tndecde hij King,tobe en^ag'd in WalcSj 
There,wtthontRanforae,toJyefoifcitcd: 
Difgrac'd me in my happie Viftoties, 
Sought to intrap me by intelligence. 
Rated my Vnckle from the Councell-Boord, 
In rage difmifs'd my Father from the Court, 
BioKcOath onOath,committed Wrong on Wrong, 
And in conclufionjdrouc vs to feeke out * 

This Head of fafetie; and withall.topiic 
Into his Title: the which wee finde 
Too indircft, for long continuance. 

S/«»r. Shall I returne this anfwer to the Kipg ? 

Hotjp, NotCo,Siifyalter. 
Wec'le with-draw a while : 
Go£ to the King,and let there be impawn'd 
Some furetie for a fafe returne agame, 
And in the Morning early fliall my Vnckle 
Bring himourpurpofe: and fo farewell. 

£l»>it, I would you would accept of Grace and LouCi 

Hetjp, And'tmaybclbwceflialJ. . 

£!Hnt. Pray Heauen you doe. Extmh 



Scena Quarta, 



Sntifthe Arch'Bi!hof cfTarke.dfid Sir MkhcU. 

u4rc&.Hie,good t\t M'.che!l,\itMc this fcaledEriefe 
Withwingedhaftetothe Lord Marlhall, 
This to my Coufin Scrsope, and all the reft 
To whom they arc diredcd. 
If you knew how much they doe import, 
You would make haQe. 

Sir Mich. My good Lord,I guefle their tcucr. 

j4rch. Like enough you doe. 
TomorroWjgood Sir Jl<fkhell,\i a day. 
Wherein the fortune of ten ihoufand men 
Muft bide the touch. For Sir,3t Shrewsbury, 
As I am truly giuen to vnderftand, 
TheKing,withmightie and quick-rayfed Power, 
Meetes with Lord Harry : and 1 feare.Sir Michtli^ 
What with the fickneflc of Northumhrland, 
Whole Power was in thefirft proportion ; 
And what with Otveit Gleudorters abfcnce thence. 
Who with them was rated firmely too. 
And comes not in.ouer-rul'dby Prophecies, 
I fcare the Power of Percj is too weake. 
To wage an inftant tryall with the King. 

5(r A//r«.Why,roy good Lord.you need not fcar*j 

There is 'DorvglM,znA Lord UHtrtimer, 

Jlrch. Ko^tMortmer is not there. 

Sir Mr .But there is Mordaki.FermnXoi^ Hitrty ttrl 
And there is my Lord of Worccfter, 
And a Head of gallant Warriors, 
Noble Gentlemen. 



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7 he Firjl Tart o/Kjpg Henry the Fcurtb. 



69 



t/irch. And fo there is, but yet tlie King hath dtawnc 
The fpcciall head of all the Land together : 
The Prince of Wales, Lord Mwof Lancalicr, 
Tiie tsfoblc WrRmerland, and warhke 3lu»t ; 
And many moc Corriua!s,and dearc men 
Qfcrti'niacion, and command in Armes. 

SirM. Doubt not my Lord,hefhallbe\velloppos'd 
tArch. I hope no lelfe? Yet ncedl'ull 'tis to feare. 
And to prciient the worft. Sir AtscLell fpeed ; 
For if Lord Percy thriuc not, ere tht: Kni^ 
Difmifle his power, he mcancs lo vifit vs : 
Porljeliath heard of our Confcderacic, 
And, 'tis but Wifedome to make ftrong againft him i 
Therefore make haft, I muft go write againe 
To other Friends : and fo farewcll,Sir Micht^L Exettnf, 

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ABm Qmntm, ScenaTrima. 



Enter the K:>ig, Prmce of Whales , Lord. laha ofL^ncaJier, 
barle offVefimerIa>9d,Sir Waller Blunt y 

andF.iljUfe. 

King. Kowbioodily the Sunnc begins topeere 
Abouc yon busky hill : the day lookes pale 
Athis diftemperaturc, 

Frin. TheSouthernewinJe 
Doth play the Trumpet to his purpofes. 
And by his hollow whiftling in the Leaucsj 
Fortels aTcmpefi.and abloft ring day. 

King . Then with the iofers I't it fympathize. 
For nothing-can fecme foule to thofc that win. 

The Trumpet finuds, 
Enteriycrce^er, 

King. How now my Lord of Worfier? 'Tis not wtll 
That y^p and 1 fhould meet vpon fuch tearmcs, 
As now ws meet. You haue decciu'd our truft. 
And made vs dofie our eafie Robes of Peace, 
To crufh out old Umbes in vngentlc Steele ; 
This is not well, csy Lordjthis is not well. 
What fay you to it ? Will you againe vnknit 
This churlilh knot of .lU-abhorred Warre? 
And niouc in that obedient Otbe againe, 
Where you did giue a faire and naturall light. 
And be no more art cxhalj'd Meteor, 
A prodigic of Fe.ire, and a Portent 
Of broached Mifcheefe, to the vnborne Times? 

vyor. Hcare mc,my Liege : 
Fpr mine owne part, I could be well content 
To cntertainc tbc Lagge.end of my life 
With quiet houres : Fori do protcit, 
I haue not fought the day of ^j^ diflikc. 

King. You haue nor fought it : how comes it tben? 

Fal. Rebellion lay in his way,and he found it. 

Prin. Pcace,C!iewet, peace. 

I^or. Itplcas'd your Maiclty,to turneyourlookcs 
Of Fauout, from my Sclft, and all our Houfc j 
And yet I muft remember you my Lord, 
We were the firfl, and deareft of your Friends : 
Foryou, my ftaffe of Office did I breaks 
In Rtchnrds'iwne, and pqafted day and night 
Toroeetc you.oathe.way^Vld kiffc^our hatidj 



When yet you were in place, and in account 

Nothing fo flrong and fortunitc, as I ; 

It was my Selfc, my Brother, and hii Sonne, 

Thst brought you home,and boldly did out-dtre 

The danger of the tiii;e, Tou fwore to vs, 

And'you did fweare that Oath at Dcncafter, 

That you did nothing of purpofc 'gainfi the StatCj 

Norclaimc no further, then your new-falnetighf^ 

TKcfeateof G4«K?,.Dukedome.ofLancafter, 

To this, we i ware our aide ; But in Jhort (jsace-, 

It rain'd "downe FortunclE'cwring onyout head, 

Andfuch a floud of Grcatnefie felionyou. 

What with our helpc,wh3c with the abfenc King, 

What with the iniuries of wanton time, 

7 hcfeeming fuffcranccs that you had borne, 

And the contrarlouTWindes thar held the King 

So long in the vnlucky Irifh Warier," 

Th.it all in £ng~!and did repute him dea J: 

Arid from this fwarme of faire aduantageJj 

You tooke occaiion to be quickly woo'd^ 

To gripe thegeneralU'way lirco'your handj 

Forgot your Oath to vs atDoncafter, 

And being fed by vs, you vs'd vs fo. 

As tliac vngentle gull thcCuckowci Bird, 

Vfcth the Sparrow, dicfoppreflc out Ncft, 

Grew by our Feeding, to fo great a bulkcj 

T hat euen our Louc cJurft not come neere your fighc 

For feare of fwallowing : But with nimble wing 

We were inforc'd lor (afety fike,- to flye 

Out ofyour light, and raife this prefent Head, 

Whereby we ({and oppofed by fuch meanei 

As you your felfe, haue forg'd againft your felfe. 

By vnkindc vfage, dangerous, countenance, 

And violation of all faith and troth 

S worne to vs in yonget enterprize. 

Kin, Thefe things indecde you haue artJCuTaced, 
Prodaim'd at Market Croflcs read in Churches. 
To face the Garment of Rebellion 
With fome fine colour, that may pliafe tlieeyc 
Of fickle Changelings, and poorcDifcontentJ^ 
Which gape, and rub the Elbow at thcncwej 
Of hnrly burly Innouation : 
And neuer yet did Infurreflion want 
Suchwater-coIourSjtoimpainthis'Cflufc; 
Nor moody Beggars, rtaruing for a tirac 
Of pell-mell hauocke,anJconfu(iotL 

Vrtn. In bothour Armies, thcrcis many a foule 
Shall pay full dearely for this cncoaater. 
If once they ioyne in triall. Tell yourNephew, 
The*Prince of Wales doth ioync with all the world 
In praife oi Henry Percie : By my Hopes, 
This ptefent enterprize fee off his head, 
1 ^iiotthinkeabrauerGentleman, 
More a(Siue,yaliant,or more valiant yong, 
More daring,or more bold,is now aliue, 
j To grace this latter Age with Noble deed*. 
For m^' part, r may fpeake it to my fbaiBC^ 
I haue a Truant beene to Chiualry, 
And fo I heare, he doth account me too s 
Yet this before roy Fathers Maiefty, 
I am content that he fliall take the oddcs 
Of his great name and cftimation, 
AndwiU.to faue the blood on either fide, 
Try fortune with him, inaSinglcFigbi' 

Kwg. And Prince of Wales.fodare WC Y.cnCCt thee. 
Albeit, confidecations infinite 



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504- (0)- -iA. 



70 



The Firjl l^art ofK^mgHenry theFmnL 



Domakcagainft ic:No good Worfter,no, 
Wc louc our people well ; cucn thofe i»c loue 
That arc milled vpon your Coufins par: : 
KtA will they take the offer of our Grace : 
Both he, and they, and you ; yea.cuery man 
Shall be my Friend againe, and lie be his. 
So lellyour Coufin.and bring me word.j 
Whatbe«illdo.- But ifhc will not yeeld. 
Rebuke and dread correftion waite on vs, 
\nd they fhall dp iheii Office. So bee gone. 
We will not now be troubled with reply. 
We offer faitCj take it aduifedly, 

Bxit jygrcejler. 
Trifi. Ic will not be accepied.on my life. 
The ZJow^teand the Hotjpurrt boih together. 
Are confident againft the world in Armeg. 

Kii>£. Hence therefore, cuery Leader to his cliarge> 
For on their anfwei will we fct on them ; 
And God befiiend cs, as our caufe is iuft. E^-suut. 

Manet Prince and Ffilfixfe' 
Tdl. Hal, if thou fee roe downc in the battell. 
And beftride me, fo'; 'tis a point of fricndfnip. 
?n».Nothing but a Coloffuj can do thee that ftendfhip 
Say thy prayers, and farewell. 

VaI, I would it were bed time //.j/,and all well^ 
Tria. Why,tbouow'flheaucnadcath. 
Faljlt Tis lot due yet: I would bee loath to pay him 
before his day. What neede 1 bee fo forward with him, 
ihatcalls not op tre? Well, 'tis no mat.nrr,Honorprickei 
me on. But how if Honour pricke me off when I come 
on? How then? Can Honour fettooalegge?No : plan 
arroe ? No : Or take away the giee& of a wound ? No. 
Honour hath no skill in Surgeric.then ? No.What is Ho- 
nour ? A word. What is that word Honour ? A yre : A 
trim reckoning. Who hath it ? He that dy'de a Wednef- 
day. Dothhefeelcit?No, Dothhes heareiiPNo.lsit 
iafcnfiblc thcn?yca,to the dxad But wil it not liue witn 
the liuing? No. l/Vhy r Dcirailion wil not faflier itjiher- 
forc He none of ic. Honour is a meere Scutcheon, and fo 
ends my Catcchi Tine. o^^ £xtr 




^Hter WorcifltTf andStr T^chard V.eriian. 

IP'or- O no.my Nephew muil not kno w,Sir Richard, 
The liberall kinde offer of theKingw 

Ffr.'Twerebcfthedjd. 

fVor, Then weare all vndone. 
It is nor pofliblc.it cannot be. 
The King would kcepe his word in loiyiTg v», 
Hcwillfufpedlvsfliil and findc a timp 
To punirn this offcnccin others faults : 
Suppofition,a!l out liues, fhall be ftucke full ofeyes ; 
FovTreafonU but trufted like the Foxe, 
Who nc're fo tame, Xp chcriHit^and lock'd vp, 
Willhauc awildctrickej^f his Anceflors : 
lookc howhecan,orfadoraifiuUy, 
Interpretation will mifquote our lookeSi 
And we (hall fecdc like Oxen rf. a ftall. 
The better chcriflit, (iill theasaKr death. 
My Ncphewes trcfpsfir may be well forgot, 
khsU* the excufc ofyouth,And hcate of bloody 



T78-C0J 



And an adopted name of Ptiuiledge, 
Ahaire-brain'd Hotjpmre, goaern'd by aSplcsncj 
All his offences liuc vpon my head. 
And on his Fathers. We did traine him on 
And his corruption being tane from ?s, 
W c as the Spring of all, (hall pay for all ; 
Therefore good Coufin, let not Harrj know 
In any cafe, the offer of the King. 

Ver. Deliuer what you will,IIe (ay 'tUfo. 
Heete comes your Co^n. 

Zmer HotJpHTrt^ 

Hot. MyVnkleisreturn'd, 
Deliuer vp my Lord of Weftmerland, 
VnkJCjWhat newc-l 

Wer. The King will bid youbattellprefently, 

Bois'.Dcfie him by the Lord of Wel^nicrland. 

Het. Lord Dowglas ; Go you and tell him fc. 

Dorf, Marry and fhall.and vcric willingly. 

£xit DovfgUi, 

TFor. There is no feeming mercy in the King. 

Hot, Did you bcggeany^God forbid. 

iVor. I told him gently of our grceuancer, 
Ofhis Oath-breaking: which he mended thi;;^ 
By now forfwearing thit he is forfworne, 
He cals vs Rebels^'Ttaitorr jand will fcourg; 
With haughty attnes, this hatefull ramc in vs. 
Entir Derpglat. 

3)erp. Armc Geniiemcn, to Armes, for 1 haue thrown 
Abraue defiance in K'mgHe»r:ej teeth; 
And Weftmerland that was ingag'd did bears ir. 
Which cannot choofc but bring h\(p quickly en. 

f^er. The Ptinceof \V'ale> ftept forth before the king, 
And Nephew, chaileng'd you to (ingle fight. 

Hot. O, would the quarrel) lay vpon our heg^. 
And that no man might draw fhorc breath to day. 
But 1 and Harrji Monmouth. Tell me,iell mee, 
fclow Qiew'd his Talking ? Scem'd it in contempt ? 

f^er. Ho, by my Soule : I neuer in my life 
Did heare a Challenge vrg'd more modeiily, 
Vnlefll* a Bcotherfhcuil J a Brother dare 
To gentle exercifc, and proofc of Armer.. 
He gauc yjou all the Duties of a Man, 
Ttimm'd vp your pi^ilcs with a Princely tongue. 
Spoke your dsferuingi like a ChtoniclCj 
Making you euct better then his praife. 
By ftill difpraifingpraife, yalew'd with you : 
And which became him likc;,^ Prince indeed. 
He made a blufTiiDg citall of hirofelfe, 
^nd chid his Trewain youth with fuch a Gracr^ 
As tfhc mailed there a double fpitic 
Of teaching, and of learning inftantly : 
There did he paufe. But let me jjj] the World, 
If he oot-Iiue the enuie of this day, 
England did neuet owe fo fweet a hope, 
So much mifconftrucd in his WantonncfTe. . 

Hot. Coufin, Tthinke thou art coatcored 
On his Follies ; neuer did I heare 
Of any Prince fo wiloe at Liberty. 
But be he 85 he will, yet once ere night, 
I will imbrace him with? Souldicrs srrac. 
That he fhall (hrinke vndcr my cunefic. 
AaOKjarmc with fpecd. And FelIoWs,Soldiers,Friends, 
Better ccnfider ^jfj^y; you haue to io. 
That I that haue not ^gU ihe gift of Tongue, 

Can 

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The Ftr fi Tart ofKjpg Henry theFwrtk 



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Can life your blood vp with pcrfwaficn. 
Ent er a Olfeffenger, 

Mff- My Lord,heere arc Letter J,fji- you. 

Hott I cannot reads tlicm now 
QGcntlcmcn* the time of life is (tort ; 
Tofpcnd that fiionncflcbafcly.wcre too long, 
Iflifc did ride vpon a Dials pome, 
Still ciding at the atnuali ol'an houre , 
And if we liuc, wcllueto ireadcoaKings: 
Ifdyc;brauedeath,wlicn Princes aye with \i^ 
Now for oiiv Conlcienccs, the Arn.es is faire, 
Wticn the intent for bearing them is mft. 
Enicj another cjl ic^eyigcr. 

Mef, My Lord prepare, the Kuii;- comes on tipacf. 

JUt. 1 thanke him, that he cuts me from my t...^; 
For I profclTenot talking: Qucly this. 
Let each man do his beft. And hccre J^drawaSworJ, 
VVhofe worthy temper 1 intend to ftaiuc 
With tbebcft blood that I can raecte wichall, 
fn the aducature of this pcrillous day. 
Now Efperance/^ivf)', ^ fc-t on : 
Sound all the lefty luttruments of Warre, 
Andby that Mil fukc, Ice V sail imbracc : 
For heauen t,o earth, fomc oi\i)i neuer fnail, 
A fccond time do fuch a curtcSie. 

"jhe eiKbrdcejheTnimj/ets found, the Kinrrentsreth 
with hii power, alar am vnto the (iM cell. 7 hen eater 
Dowg!as,aKdS(T JVulter'Blnnt. 

j5/tf.Whac t thy name, that in battel thus y croflcii mc? 
What honor doft thoufecke vpon my head? 

1)079. Know then my name is DowgUs, 
And I do haunt thee in the battcU thus> 
Bccaufe fome Cf Umc, thji: thou arc a King, 

Blum. They tell thee \iM£. 

Dow. The Lord <)f Stafford deere to day hath bought 
Xby likcneil'e : for inftcd of thee King Harry, 
TbisSwordhaih ended him, fo fhallitthcej 
VnlelTe thou yeeld thee as a i^rifoner. 
;'.• Bla. I was not borne to yeeldjchou haughty Scot, 
And thou fna! v finde a King ihAt viill reucnge 
tords Staftords death. 

Fiii^ht, Blunt t( fl.iiae, then enters FLitfpur, 

Hot. O DowgU!^\^A^ thou tought^Huimedonthus 
Tncuerhad triiimj)hcd ore a Scot. 

£'9w- 4lL's done,a!]'s won,herc brearhlcs lies the king 

Hot. Where.'' 

Hot. This DoK'£ias} No,I know this face full well : 
AgallantKnight he was, his name was "Blunt,. 
Scmblably fijai;fi;14 like the King himlelfe. 

Dovo, /\h foole : go with thy foiUe whether ;t goes, 
A borrowed Title haft thou bought toa decre. 
Why didft thou tell me, that thou wer'ti^Kuig ? 

Hot. The King hath many marching in his Coats. 

25W. fclofflby roySword,! will kijt all his Coates, 
Ik murder all his Wardtobffpeece by pccce, 
Yntilll meefcthcKing, 

Hat, Yp.andaway, 
,Out Souldiers ftand full iakdy for tVe day. Exeunt 

^larnm,a>ide>iter F.il/lijfe folm. 

TnU Though I could fcapc ftiorrfree at Lo«don,I fear 
tHe(hQtbecre : here's nofcoEing,buc vpoJUthe pate.Soft 
wh<vare you ? Sir Walter 'BluKt, that's Honour for. you : 
hcrc"sno vanity, I am as hot as molten Lead,aod *5 he*- 
uy too}h£auen kecpe Lead out of mce, I octde no more 
weight then, .iBjacowneBowcIle$. 1 hauc M tn^ rag of 



Muffins where they arepeppei'd : there's not three of my 
150. left aliue^and they for the Townes end, ^q, beg du- 
ring iifc. But who comes hecref 
Enter the PrtHce, 

rn.What.ftand'ft thou idle hcrePLend me thv fword, 
Many a Nobleman likes ftarke and ftiffe 
Vnder the hooucs ofvaunting enemies, 
Wiiolc deaths are vnrcueng d. Prethy lend mc thy fword 
piil. O Hal^l prcthec giuc mc leauc to breathawhile : 
Tuike Grf^O'^ncucr did fuch deeds in Armcs as I haue 
done this day. I haue paid Percy ^X hai^u made hini furc. 

Vrm. He is indced,3nd lining to kill thee ; ' 
JjJrcthee lend me thy f\n;ord, 

fjft. Nay Hd if Percv hs& aJiue, thou ge:ft not my 
Sword but take my l^ifloli ifthou wdc. 

Prin. Giue it me : What, \i it \Q.che Cafe : 

tiil. I HJ, 'tis hot • There's that will iifclip a City 
TbeVriiscedrawes ocf a bottle of Sackr. 

?,m. What, is it s time.co icfi jad dally now. Exit. 

7 kr<>vees it at hir». 

FaL If Percy be aiiue, lie pierce him ; if he do come in 
myway/o:ifhedpnot, ificomeinhis (wjlhngly) lee 
himmakcACarbonadoofmc; 1 like not fuchgrinnini; 
honouras Su- fVMter hath : Giue mee life, which if I an 
faue, fo ; if not,honour comes vnlook'd for, aud rhpfe an 

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i/iLvrnmfixcHrftons, enter theKingfhs Prince^ 
Lqr.d luhn ofLaKcaller, wd Enrlc 
cflVeJinierUnd, 

King I prethee H^vry withdraw thy felfe, ihcu ysa^- 
dcHtoo much; Lord Suhn ofLanca/ler,e,o you with iuia» 

P. lob. Not I, my Lot d.vnlefle 1 did bleed too. 

prim JJscfeechyour MaieSy make vp, 
Lesft you renremeuc do a»aie yout fnendSf 

King, I will do lo : 
My Lord of V^^meilaad leadc him to hiiTent. 

Weji, Co.ne a.y Lord, !le lead^ you.to your Tent. 

Prii. Lcid me my Lord? I do not need your hclpc. j 
And heauen forbid a (liallow ftraiclifhould drit'.e 
The Prince of Wiles from luch a field as thji. 
Where ftaiii d Nobility lyes trouen on. 
And t{,e b>'?^ Armcs triumph in maflacrcs. 

loh. We breath too long; Come cflfia Wclirerland, 
Our doty this way lics,for hcaueas fake cxsEOS 

Pri:-] By heauen thouiiaft dcceia d me Lancifler,^ 
I did mi. chinke thee Lord of fuch a Ipint ; 
Before, 1 laiui thee as a Brother, loi^n ; 
But now, I doriQi££i rhee as my Soule. 

King. 1 faw liim hold Lord PjX£]l at the poinr. 
With luftier maintenance then 1 did loflix fcr 
Offuch an yngrowns Warriout. 

Pri>}. OthisBoy.UojJsn'ettalltovsaU. Exit. 

Ehter Dowglas. 

Dow. Another Kiog'They grow liketjg^sal^ beaiisi 
T am thzDorvgUs., fatall to all thofc 
Tiatwcate thofc colours ontherD. Whstartthoa 
Xbat Cflgoiflsfeit'fl the pctfon of a King ? 

KiKg.lhQ Kinghimfelfe ;. who tm^ gticyes at h«t 

So 



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So.nwny of his ftjadowes thou haft mcc. 
And not thevety King. IhauctwoBoyes 
Seekc Ttrcj and thy fclfc about the Field : 
But feeing thou fsU'ft oj^nitf fd luckily, 
I will affay thee : Co defend thy fclfe. 

'Dev. J featcchoaart another counterfeit: 
Andyctiofaiththoubear'^lihceHVeaKing: 
But mine I am fufc thou att.whoerc thou be, 
And thus I v?tn thee. 1h^ fight ^ the Khing iu danger, 
BnterPrtnec, 
Tritt. Hold vp they head vile Scot,or thou ait i;Icc 
Ncaer to hold it vp againc : tlie Spirits 
Of valiant Skerlj.Siafftrd,'BHtnt,Kt in my Armtsj 
It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee. 
Who neuer p^omifecbjbuthcmeanej to pay. 

Thtyrtght,'Dowglasfytth. 
Cheercly My Lord: hov fits's your Grace ? 
S'uNiehlat Gsmfey hath for fuccourfcnt. 
And fo hath Oifton : He to Cliften ftraight, 

Kin£. Stay,and breath awhile. 
Thou haft redeenfd thy loft opinion. 
And niew'd thou raak'ft fome tender of my life 
In this faire tefcue thou haft brought to niee, 

TriH, O heaucn, they did mc too nmch jniory. 
That cuev fiid I hearkned to your death. 
If it were fo, I might haue let aloue 
Theinfultinghandof D(;w^//tjoucryou^ 
Which would haue bene as fpeedy in your end. 
As all the poyfonous Potions in the world. 
And fau d the Treacherous labour of your Sonne. 

Ji:, Make vp to ^/»/t«»,lle to Sir nkholas Canfej. :^xlt 

Enter Hatjptir. 
Hot. If I miftake nor, thou art Harrj Moftrnmh, 
Prit$. Thou fpeak'a as if I would deny my naoie. 
Hot. My aimz Is H'trriePercic. 
Pria.Why then I fee a very valifint rebel of that name. 
1 am the Prince of Wales^and tbinkc not "Percy ^ 
To fiiare withmc in glory any more ; 
Two Starres keepe not their motion in onC Sphere, 
Nor can one England brookc a double leignc, 
QiH.xr>yTercy,md the Prince of Walcr. 

Hat, Nor (hill it Harry, for the hourc is come 
To end the one of vs; and wodIJ^o hcauen. 
Thy nansein Atmcs, were now as greatas mmc. 

Pn». lie make it greater.ete 1 part fropi thee,' 
And all the budding Honors on thy Cteft, 
lie crop,tOiaake a Garland for my head. 

Hot. I tanno longer brooke thy V'stihieJ. F^^r. 

Enter Falfiafe. 
Fal. Well faid /f.?^.to it //,i/. Nay you (hall finde np 
Boyes play hcerc,! can tell you. 

Eater Tioxopas h f fight smth TMflajfe who fals down 
41S tfheroere dead. The Prtrce'kiltelh Percte. 
Hoi. Oh W;iro',chou haft rob'd inc of roy youth : 
I better brookc the lofTe of brittle life. 
Then thofe proud Titles tboo ball wonne of me. 
They wound my thoghts wotfe,then the fword my flefli: 
But thought's the flaiie of Lire,3ndLife,Tiincsfoole J 
And Time, that takes itirucy of all the world, 
Mnft haue a ftop. O, I could Prophefie. 
But that the Earih,and the cold hand of death. 
Lyes on my Tongue s No Percy,t.\\ou,in duft 
Aiidfoodfor— — — 

Prin. For WonT!e»,braue fer^ .Farewell great hean: 
111" weau'd Ambition, how much art thou fhtunke?. 
I When that this bodic did containe a Ipitit, 



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AKingdomeforitwastoofmallabound: 
But now tv/o pace? of the vileft Eartht 
Is roomc enough. This Earth that bcascs the dca4* 
Beares not aliucfo ftoura Gentleman, 
If thou wei'tfenfible of curtefie, 
I ffiould not make fo greata fhew ofZcale. 
Butletmyfauourshidethyniangladface, 50 

And euen in thy bchalfe.lle thanke my felfe 
For doing thefefayre Rites cfTendetneffe. 
Adieu,and takcthy'praife :m\\ thee to heauen. 
Thy ignomy fleepe with thee in the graue. 
But riot «membred in thy Epitaph. 
What? Old Acquaintance? Could not all thisflcflj 100 

Krtpein a little lifes'Poore lackc,faiewcll ; 
I could haue better fpar'd a better mati. 
O, I (hould haue a heauy miflfc of thee. 
If 1 were much in louc with Vanity. 
Death hathnot fttucke fo fat a Deere to day. 
Though many dearer in this bloody Fray ; 150 

Imbowell'd will I fee thee by and by^ 
Till then.in blood,by Noble Pereie lyc. Exit, 

T^tfiaferifetbvp, I 

TAlJf.^ lmboweUd?lf thou imbowd! roeeto day.llc 
giuc jcpaleauc to powder me,and cat me too to moroWi 
Twai t-me to countcrfet, or that hottc Termagant Scot, 
^;td paid i/«e fcot and lot too.Counteileii? I sd) no cotin* 
cctfeit; to dye, is tobe a counterfeit, forhceUbu: t^ii 
counterfeit of a man.who hathnot the life of » Oian : Bitt 
to counterteii dying^when a man thereby liucth,js to be 
nocounterfeit,bui thctrue and petfefl image of life iU" 
deede. Thebettcrpart of Valour, is Difcretioni in the | 
which better parr, I haue faued my life. I arBafftaidec^i 
rbis Gun-powder Percy though he be <icid. How if hec 
{hould counterfeit too, and rift? I am afraid hec would 
proucthebcttercouncerfeit:therefovclle make him fiire.' 
yea.and Ilefwearelkiirdhim. Why may not hce rife Jj 
well as I : Nothing confutes mebut eyes, and no»bodie 
fees me.Therefore firtajWith 3 new wound in your thigh 
come you alon g me. Takes tiot^mrre on h» hgcke. 

Evtir Prince and fohn^ifLafiCiifier. 

Prhi. Come Brother M», full brauely haft thou fleflit 
thy Maiden fword. 

hhn. Bucroft.whohauewchccre? 
Did you not tell mc tlvis Fat n'an was dead ? 

Prin. I did, i law him dead, 
Breaihleflc and bleeding on the ground: Art thou alkit? 
Or 15 it fantafie that play es vpoirout cy e-fiaht I 
I frethss fpeskc, we will not truft our eyes 
Wrthoui our eares. Thou art not what thou feem'ft. 

Tttl. No, that's certains : 1 am not a double man : but 
if 1 be not lacks Falfiafcyihta am I a lackf : There is Per' 
cy.ifyout Father will do me any Honor,fo: if n(^i,lei him 
kill the next f er«Vhimfe!fc. 1 looki to be cither Earle os 
Dukcjl can affurcyou. 

Prii). Why, Percy I kill'd my felfe, and faw thee dead# 

F«/. Did'fl thou? Lotd,tord, how the world is giuen 
to Lying? I grauntyou I was downe. and cut of Bceath> 
and fo was he, but we rofe both at an mftant.and fought 
alonghoureby Shrewsburic clccke. If I may beebelce- 
uedjfo • if not.let them th^t fh.ould reward Valour.beate 
the finne vpon their owne heads. He take't on my death 
I gaue him this wound in the T hi gh r if the man » verea- 
liuCjand would deny it, I would make himcatea lp«« 
of my fword. 

lohn. This i 8 the ft tangeft Tale that e'r? I heafd, 

FriM, This is tb€ ftrangeft Fcliow^Brothcr hh». 

Cornel 

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"The H rJlTa rtofKjng Henry the Fourth. 

Come bring your luggage Nobly on your b»ckc ; 



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For my partjif a lye may do thee grace, 
llcrgiidicwithtliehappieft tcarraeslhauc, •- 27 

t^f Retreat ii fmndedi 
nisi rumpers found Rctreat.che day is ours : 
Come Brother, let's lo the highcft of the field, 
Xo fee what Friends arc lining, who arc dead. Exeunt 
F^f. lie follow as they fay, for Reward. Hcethatrc- 
war(is»?5ff,lteiaen reward bim, If I do grow grea: again, 
flcgrowlcffe? For He purge, andleaucSackc. and hue 
dcanly.as a Nobleman fhouIJ doT — 00 — Exit 



Sc{€na Omrta, 



ThcTrutKfersfiund, 

Emit the. King, Prince ofif'ales, Lord lohn efLttnc/tfier, 

EarU Bfwel}merlgnd, mth fforcc/fer £)■ 

VerKon Prifoners. 

King. Thus euer did Rebellion finVc Rebuke. 
IlUfpiiited Worcefier.did wc not fend Grace, 
Pardon, and tearmcs ofLoucto all of you i 
And woiild'ft thou turnc our offers contrary > 
Mifufeche tenor of thy Kinfmans truft? 
Three Knights vpon our party llame lo day, 
ANob!eEstlc',andmany:2 creature elfe. 
Had bccnc aliiic this houre. 
If like a Chriftian thou had ft truly borne 
Betwixt out Armies, true Intelligence. 

h''or. What I banc done, my fafcty vrg d me to. 



And I embrace this fortunepaticnrly, 
Smccflot to be auoyded, it lals on mcc. 

King, Scare Worccfter to dcath,^jyjjt/^r»w! too ; 
Other Offenders we wiJJ paufcvponi 

Exit fr'trcefier and Vtrnot?, 
How goes the Field ? 

Frin, The Noble Scot Lord DewglAS^ when hce faw 
The fortune of the day qui;c turn'd from him, ' 

The Noble Percy flaine.and all his meni 
vpon the foot offeai-e.fled with the refl ; 
And fallingtrbm a hill, he was fo bruia'd 
That the purfuers iooke him. At ray Tenc 
The DovfgUs IS, and I bcfeech your Grace. 
1 may dilpofcofhUri. 

KiKg. With all my heart, 

Prin. Then Brother //)&» of Lanc3?er; - 
To you this honourable bounty (hail belong -. 
Go to the Doi^gUsfinA dcliuer bim 
Vp to his pleafurc, ranfomleffe and free : 
'Ris Valour (hewne vpon our Grcfts to day, 
Hath taught vs how to cheiifh fuch hi^h deeds, 
Eucn in the bofome of our Aduerfaries. 

King. Then this rcmaines : that wc diuidc our power. 
You Sonne lohn.znfi my Coufin Wcfimerland 
Towards Yorke {hall bend you.wiih your deercft foced 
To meet Northumbes land, and the Prelate Soeepd 
Who(as wc heare)arc bufily in Armet. 
My Selfe, and jTou Sonne Hitrrjr will towards Wales, 
To fight with Chndevgr.iDd the Earlc ofMarch. 
Rebellion in this Land (hall lofehis way; 
Meeting the Checke of fuch another day : 
And fince this BuSncflc fo faire is done, :, 

Lee vs not leaue till all our owne be wonne. Exeunt. 



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The S 




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Concainrngliis Death : and the Coronatioa 

of King Henry the Fift. 



Qy(llus Primus . Scoena Trima.^ 



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£>3ter 'S^monri 

ipen^yoiirBares ;Fof v/hicl>of you will fiop 
\]\ q yent.of HsairingjWiicr.-Iond R->itnor fpeakcs? 
!, fromiiSsOiieni, to the drooping Weft 
fDi^cking the windc my Po(i-hovfc) ftill vnfold 
The hSti £<;inm?iiced-ontIiLs Ball ot'Earth. 
Vpon my Tons^ne, contbiiall S]an lers ridCi 
The '.Mhich, in euery J: anguagc, ] pronounce, 
Stuffing ills Fdres of tliero wit!) falfe Reports : 
I rpeakcoi Peace, while couertEnmitic 
(Vndei- the fmile of Safety)'.voLinds thcWorld : 
And who but Ra'mostr, who but oiiely I 
MakefearfuU Muftsrs.and prepar'd tkfeajie, 
Whirft thsbiggeycare, fwolne with fomc other griefcs, 
I Isthoap,ht: with chiide, by the fierne TyratUjWarr?, 
And itf, ^jsnh matter? l^uxonr, is a Pipe 
ElowRs by Surjsiifes, i^aJiJiCSj Conieduresj 
And of to eaficj and fi phiae a (igp. 
That the blunt Monfter, with vncountad lieads, 
The Rill dilcordant, wauering Multitude, 
Can play vpon it. But what ncedc| thus 
My wclUknowncBody to Anathomize 
Among my houfl^old ? Wliy is Rumoarhetxc} 
I run before King ILmicfy'iStoty, 
WllO in a bloodie field by Shrewsburifi 
Hath beaten riowne yong HotJp!iire,zud hjs TfOopeSj 
Qncnching the fl:»me cf bold RebelUon, 
Eucn with che Rebels blood. But what meane I 
Tg fpeake fo true at firft ? My Office is 
ToW^U* abroad, that Harry {JHorifHouth fell 
Vnder the Wrath of tiJ^UIf Hotjpxrret Swotd : 
And thar.the Kinpi, before the Dotvalat Ra^r 
Stocp'd his Annointed head, as low as death. 
This haue I rumoiu'd through the pcafant-TownsJ* 
BMwecne the Royall Field af Sbrewsburic^ 
Aadthis Woroic-catcn-FJole cf ragged Stons, 
Wiierc Hoifparres Eiilwr, old Northumberlar>d, 
Lyes crafty ficke. The Poflcs come tyring on, 
And not a man of them brings other newcs 
,TK?D they haue learn dofMe. 'ProiniJwwsww Tongues-, 
They bang fmooth'ComftaLti-falfe, wciib then True- 



Scena Secunda . 



Ettter Lord "Bardo/fe, and the Pcnera 

L.'Sar. Who kcepes the Gate becrc hci ? 
Where is the Earic? 

For. What.Oiall I fay you are ^ 

£ttr. Tell thOu the Earlc 
That the Lord Bardolfe doth attend hiflj tieere. 

Fsr. His Lorjlfhip is walk'd forth into the O^chaM , 
Pleafe it your Hanoi, knocks bu£at:theGacc), 
And he himfelfe will difwcr. 

Enter Narthfimiirland, 

L .Tar. Heeie comes the Earlc. 

Nor. What newes Lerd Bjsrdolfe} Eu'ry tniujiic now 
Should be tLe Father of Ibme Stratagem; 
The Tiaies arc wilde : Contention (lik^- a Horfc 
Full of high Feeding) madly hath b.oke loofe. 
And bcatcs dawoe all before liim» 

L.Bar. Noble Earle, 
I bring you certaine as^^ from Shrewsbury. 

AV. Good,andhcauenvvilL 

L.Bar. As good as heart can wsfli ; 
The King is almoff wounded to the ^^tii ; 
And in the Forrj'Ks of my Lord your Sonne, 
prince Harria flaine out-right ; and both the BInpits 
Kill'd by ^ hand o^'Dm^glas. Yong Prince lohtt^ 
And Wef^merland. and Stafford, fled the Field. 
And Hairie Monmouth's Bra wne (the Hulke Sit Uhi) 
Is prifoncriiayourSortnSi O/uch aDay^ 
(So foughtj, fo follow'd, and fo fairely wonBs) 
Came not, till ooxi., to dignific thsTjiaics 
Since Ctefars Fortunes. 

Ner. Ha-vvisUlis dertu'd? 
Saw you the Field? Came you from Shrewsbury ? , 

L.^<«r.Ifpake with one (my L.)that came ftdthense^ 
A Gentleman wdJ bred,andcfgood name. 
That freely tendet'd me t^iefe newcs for true. 

Nir. Hcere comes my Seruant Tr^JWCT-x.whotn J fene 
On Tuefday loft, to liflen after Newcs. 
EntsrTr^tierst 

L.'Sar. Mylprdjloacr-rodhimonthewayj 
Atid he is fuiniOid with no certainties. 
More then he (haply)may retailc from mc. 

iW<?r.Now TroHtrs, what good tidings coBiesfrSy""^- 
21S - (22) - 2/i ^■^•'•■ 



50 



(7) 



100 



\h 



(4) 
150 

(8) 



(2) 
200 

Vi 
(1) 



l^befecondTart ofK^g Henry the Fcurtk 



Tr<t. . M y Lord,Si^ Ma VmpeHiH turn'd me b'ack( 
Witli ioyfut Tydingsiand (being better horsd) 
Out-rod mc- After him,, came fpiirring head 
/^Gentleman (aitro!^ fore-fpcns with ipeed) 
That ftopp'd by ms, to breath hji bloodied horre. 
ile ask <J the way to Chctkr t And of him 
J^dJd.demand what Ncwcs from Shrewsbury: 
He told mCj sij^jRcbellion had M locke. 
And that yong H^yrj Percks Spu^rs was cold. 
With that he gaue his able Horfe the head, 
And bending for (VardsftfooSc his able heeles • 
Agsiuft th? panting fides oi bis poore ladc 
Vp to the RovYci) hcad^an^ flatting fo. 
He fecm'd in running, to deuoure she way. 
Staying no longer qucftion. 

North. Ha?Againe: 
Saidiv?yong Hante Percyes S'purre was coltl ? 
(Of //'<'^<?p»'■^^ccld•Spurre?) that RtseiLo?, 
H<idin«iniucke? 

L^TiitTi My lord :Tle tell you whatj 
If njy yong Lord your Sonnc,haue not the Jcy , 
Vpon mine Honor, for a filkcn point 
Jle giuc my Barony. Ncugr talkc olit. 

/Vor. Why flioul J the Gentlemarv that code hyT yaiiny: 
Giuc-henluch inftanccs ofLoflcf 

L.Har, Who, he? 
^ewas ''otnc bieldingFelloWj that had ftolne 
TheHorCchai^odc-oii ; and vpon my lite 
Speake a: aducnturc. Looke,|ia£;cocnes moreNciyes, 

193 

Mnfcr {yilsrtoa^ 

Nar» VcSjtHis mans Irow, like tog,TitI«-lcaft, 
ForC'tels sheNainrcof a Tragicks Voliimc : 
Soloolics the Sirond, when the Imperious HoticJ 
Hath kftawitnertVlurpation, 
Say Mortoff, did'ft thou come frotn Shrewsbury }, 

Mor, I !aB-fi'<'f''Sbrcwsbuty (my Noble Loi J} 

Where hatefull deatli put on his vglicfi^jstfl. 
To fright our party. 

North. How tljthTTiV Sonne. and Hrothc:!? 
Thou trembl'H; and the whitcncflc in thy Chectc 
Is gji££thcn thy Tongue, to tell thy Errand. 
Eucn fach amatii foiaint,fo fpiritlciic. 
So dull, fo dead uilooke,fo vvoe-bc-gonc. 
Drew PrUms Curtaine,ui the dead ftfniohrj 
And woulij haue told him, llalfe his T.-oy wasb nrnVL 
ButFrw)» found the Fitc.ere he his Tonoue i 
And I , my P:rcies death, ere thou repott'fl it. 
This, thou would'ft fay : Your Sonne didthus,and thus : 
Youi Broilicr. thus . So fought the l<lobleZ?o3?^/<f/, 
Stopping my precdv carejwith their bold deeds. 
But m the end (to ^op mine Eare indeed) 
Thou iiatl a Sigh, to blow away thisPraife, 
Ending with lJrotlicr. Sonne,and all are dead. 

Mor. 'Tyuwglas is huing .and your BrQther,yct; 
Bu: for my Lord, your Sonne, 

North. Why he is dead. 
Sc2 what a ready tongue Sufoitioii hath : 
He that but feares the thing.hc would t^oi know. 
Hr.th by Ioftinft,knowledgc from others Eyes, 
That what li£.fe3rd, is' chanc'd. Vet fpeake(7Jl5)'M») 
Tell thou thy Earlc.lyjiDiuination Lies, 
And 1 will take i t, as a (kifiLDifgrace, 
And make thee rich, for doing me fuch Wiffiflg. 

Mar^ Youaretoosreat,tobe(bymc) gainfaid: 
447 -f-n) - 11/.- >':W,) 

■'■' I ■ II U I I llllll IJ. t ■ ■ , 



7^ 



Your Spirit is too true, your Fsares too ccrtaine. 

Nerih. Xcsfor all Ehjs,fay not that Percies dead. 
I ifiga (Grange ConfefTion in th;..' 5ye : 
Thou fliak'ft thy headj and hold fl it FearCjOrSinne 
To fpeake a irutjj,. If he be flainc,fay fo : 
ThcToi^gueoffc-nds asJU that reports his deaeh ; 
And he doth tinnc that dotlx bclyc the dead : 
Not he,whichfaycs the dead i^notaliuc: 
Yet the fiiftbringer of vnwelcomeNewes 
I jjiith bui a loofiiig Office : andhis Ton^nej 
Sounds cuer aiisi as a fuller Bell 
Remembrcd, knoUing a departing Friend, 

L.'Bar. X^annoi thinkc(my Lordjycur (on is dcado 

Mor. I am forry, J.fiiould force you to belecuj 
That, which 1 wouidiaheauen,Ihad not fcenc. 
But tbefe mine eyesjiaaihim in bloody ftaiC;, 
Rcnd'ring faint qii!f.cance/;weatied,and OKE-Sjffsath'd) 
To Henrie 4/i3;;;3?i:,ii6,whofe fw jfi wrath Ijcaic downe 
The neuer-daunced I'ercie to vilteatth, 
From whencc(with life)he neuer mo?e /p:ung ?p. 
In &yy j his death (whofc fpirit lent a fire, 
Euen toihe'dullcftPcazantinhisCampe) 
Being bruited onc^^tcjoke fire find hcate nwny 
From the beft temper a Courage in his Troope^i 
_For|iayahis Mctdc, v/as his Party fteel'd ; 
Which once.in him abated, all the reR 
Turn'd on chcmfelues, like d-jil jaiheauy Lead J 
And as she Thing, ^.hat's hcauy jnitfelfej 
Vpon enforcenientjflyes with greateu fpscjcj 
So did giij.Mcn,heauy in K. ■ "/r:nes\oSs, 
Lend to ihis weight, ludlhgiitncffc with their Fsare, 
That Arrowes fled not fwificrifljatauLthcir ayme. 
Then did our Soldiers fayming at their lafety) 
Fly from the fifiiiL Then was tha: Noble Worcefler 
Too fooneta*neprifoner:aad.that furious Scor, 
(The bloody DovcgUi) wbcfe well-labouring fwor J 
Hid three times flaias th'appearsnce of the King, 
Can vailchis ftomackc, auJidid grace the fliame 
Of thofethat funi'd their barfep^ : and inhisflighrj 
Stumbling in Fcare,W3$ tookc. The f iimme ofall^ 
Is, that the Ring hath wonne : sad hath ff nt ant 
A fpeedy power, to encounter you my Lord, 
Vnder the Condu(5l of yong Lancafter 
And Wellmcrlaiid. This i s the Newcs at full. 

North. For this,! ftiall luufttime enough to moUfK-. 
InPoyfoii,thereiiPhyficke : aasithisncwa 
(Hailing bccnc wcll)that would haue made me iickc. 
Being ficke. haue in fome meafure,fnadc me well. 
And as the.Wretch.whofe Feaucr-weakned loyn:*. 
Like firengthlefle Hindgej,b:icklc vnde r life. 
Impatient of hi? Fit, breakcs like a Hrc 
Out flihis keepers armes : Euenio, my Limbca 
( Weak'aed with grecfc) being now inrag 'dwith greefc. 
Arc thrice thcmfelues. Hence therefore thou nice »:fu::ch. 
A fcalie Gauntlet now^wsth ioy nts ofSceele 
Muft fflouet his hand. And hence thoo fickiy Quoifsj 
Thou atta^uard too wanton for the head. 
Which PrineeSjflcfh'd jjujiiX^onqueft.aymc to hit. 
Now biude my brgwes with Iron,and approach 
The ragged'ft houte,that Time and Spight isssJuing 
Tofrowne vpon th'enrag'd Northambcrland, 
Let Hcauen kilTcJEsrth : now let not Natures hand 
iKeepe the w ilde Fjaqi confin'd : Let Order dye, 
{^nd let the world no Ipjigy he a Hagc 
To fecdc Contention in a Ikig'ring A£t;i 
But let one fpirit of the hirft-borncCi<»«# •">0'^ 

508 - (38) - il, -g Reigne 



50 



Ih 



7 6 The fecond Tart of K^ ing Henry the Fourths, 



Reigie in all bofomes, chat each heart being fee 
On bloody Coiirfes. the rui1e Scene iiiay end. 
And darknciTe b; the biiricr of the dead. (Hcnor. 

LlBar Sweet Barlc,du!orce not wirc<lorn from your 
:7>'ior. The Hues of.iU yout louing Complices 
Leanc-on your health, the which if you giuc.o'ie 
To flormy Paflion, murt perforce decay. 
You caft th'cucni of Wj£fe(iTiy Noble Lord) 
And fumm'd the accompt of Chancc,bcfore you laid 
Letvs make head : Itwasyourprefurmize, 
That in the dole of blowe8,your Son might drop. 
You knew he walk'd o'rc perils, on an edge 
Morclikcly to fall in, then to get o'rc : 
You were aduis'd his flefh was capeable 
Of Wounds, and Scarres 5 and that his forward Sptric 
Would lift him, where moft trade of danger ranft'd ^ 
Yet did you fay go forth : and none of this 
(Though ftrongly apprehended) could reflraina 
The ftiffc-borne Adiion : What hath then befaine ? 
Or what hath this bold entetpriz-c bring forth. 
More then thit Being, which was like to be ? 

L.Bar. We all that are engaged to this lofle. 
Knew th.it we ventut'd on fuch dangerous Seas, 
That if we wrought out life,was ten to one : 
And yet wc ventui'd for the gaine propos'd, 
Choak'd the refpefl of likely perill fear'd, 
And fince wc are o'rc-Ser,venturc againc. 
Comc.we will all put forih; Body,and Goodi, 

TWor.Tis more then time : And (my moft Noble Lord) 
I hcarc for certaine, and do fpeakc the truth : 
The gentle Arch-billiop of Yorke is vp 
With well appointed Powres : he is a man 
Who with a double Surety bindes liis Followers. 
My Lord (your Sonne)hsd cnely but the Coipcj, 
L'ut fhadowcs, and the ftiewes of iren to fight, 
f-or that fame wo>ti(Rebe!lion) did diuide 
The adtion of their bodies, from their foisjes. 
And they did fight with queafincfle, conHrain'd 
As men drinke Potions; that their Weapons pniy 
Seerh'd on our fide : but for their Spirits and Soules, 
Ttiis word (RebellionJTt had f£02.e them vp, 
As Fifh are in a Pond. But now die Billiop 
Ttirnes Inlurrcftion toRchgion, 
Suppos'd fincerc.snd holy in his Thoughts : 
He's foUow'd botn wUnCodyjand wkh Mindc : 
And doth enlarge his Rifing, with ttieBlood 
OffaircKing Richard, fcrap'd from Pomfret fioncs, 
Deriues from h£auen,his Quarrcll.and his Caufe J 
Tels ihem,he JotfT&eftiide a bleeding Land, 
Gafping for life, vnder great BuU'mgbrookff 
And more,and kfie.do flocke to follow hir,?. 

North. I knew of this before But to fpeakc truth, 
This prcrent"^eere had wip'd it from my ip.indt. 
Go in with me^n- counccll oucry man 
The apteft way for fafety, and teuenge : 
Get Pofl?,and.Letter3,an Jmake Friend's with fpced, . 
Neaer Co fey^,nor neuer yet more need. ^^§_ Exeunt. 

~ " ScenoTmia. (i*)"^^ 

Enter Fiil[}.jife,and Pa(re. 
F.i/.5irra,you giant,v;h:it Insii thcDoft.to my water? 
Pag. HeTit^fir,thcvvaterit klfe wasa good healthy 
' vtratcr:but foFThe party that ow d it,he might haue mote 

I'BiIcaTes then h" V^sw for. 
ftiL Men ofall forts take a pride to gird at mee; the 
408 -(14) - oh., 



brainc of this fooiifh compounded CJay-man, is not able 
to inuent any thing that tends to laughter, .^ more then 1 
iniientjorisinuentcdonme. lamnoconely wittyin my 
felfcjbnt thccaufe that wit !_s in other men. Idoeheere 
walkc before thee, like a Sow, that hath o'revMhelm'd all 
her Litter, but one. If the Prince put thee into my Set- 
uice for any other reafon, then to fct mee otf, why then I 
baiicnoiudgcmcnt. Thou horfon Mandrake, thou ait 
fitter to be woroe in my cap, then to wait at my hceles. I 
was neuer niann d with an Agoi till now : but I willfette 
you ney ther in Gold, nor Siluer, but in vilde apparell.and 
fend you backe againc to your Mnficr. for a lewciL The 
/««e»(i// (the Prince your Mafter) whofeChin is-notyet 
fiedg'd, I will fooncr haue a beard grow in the Palme of 
' my hand, then he IKall get one on his cheeke : yet he will 
not fticke to fay, his Face is a Face-Royall. Hesucn may 
finifli it when he will, it is not a haire ai-oiffe ^et : he may 
,keepc it ftill at a Face-Royall , for a Bcibct iKall netiet 
came fix pence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, s.-s if 
he had writ man euer fince his Father was a Batchellour. 
He may kccpe his owne Grace, but he is almoft out df 
mine, lean alTujc him. What faid M.^Dow^/fi/ow, about 
the Satten for ray (hort Cloakc,and Slops ? 

Ttig. He laid fir.youfliould procure him better Affu- 
rance,then!S<«r^*//J' .* he wold not take his Bopd & yours, 
he lik'd not the Security. 

Vd. Let him bee damn'd like the Glutton, ma^ liii 
7'onguc be hotter,a horfon AchstojheL ; a Rafcally^yea- 
/prfooth-knauf icarco Gentleman in hand, and then 
ftandvponSeciri The horfon fmooth-pates doe now 
wearc nothing butliigh (hoes, and bunches of Keyes at 
their girdles : and if a man is through with them inho- 
nefi Taking-vp, then they muft ftasidvpon Securitie: I 
had as hcfe they would put Ranj-bane inmymouth, ai 
offer to floppc it with Security. 1 look'd hce iiliouldhaue 
fent me two and tv;enty yards sf Satten (as I sm true 
Knight) ancl he fends me Securuy. Well,hc may fleep in 
Security, for he hath the hornc of Abundance : and the 
lightneffcofhis WifelTiines through it, and yet cannot 
he lee,though he haue his owne Lanthbrne to lighthim, 
Where's 'Bariilfct 

Tag. He's gone into Smithfieldeo buy your worfiiip 
a horfe. "^ 

Val, 1 bought him in Paules,and hee'l buy mee a horfe 
inSmithfield, If I could get mee a wife in the Stcwes, I 
'^ereMann'd,Hors'd,and Wiu'd. ,. j '^" 
£nttj Chiefe Itt^ke^ttnd SeraaKt, 
Tag. Sir, heere comes the Nobleman that corasnictfid 
tlie Prince for flriKirig"hiiT ,,about "Bardelfe. 
Fal. Wait clofc,! will not lee him. 
Ch.Iufi. What's he that goes there? 
Ser. f/?iJ?<2jjv,an<frpIeafeyour Lordfhipo 
Ii'^L Hethat wasin queftionfor theRobb«ry ? 
Ser. He myXord.but he hath fince done good fetulce 
at Shrewsbury.: and(aTnicarc)«is now going with foroc 
CbargCjtothc l^oidlchnofLMCdfler. 

Iffil. What to YorkeP^Call him backe agalne. 
Ser. iiiT IchK Falfinffe. 
Fa!, Boy, tell him, I am deafc. 
Fag. You muft fpeakc lowdcr,my Mafter is dcafe. 
/«//. I .im fure he is.to the healing of any thing good. 
Go pluckc him by the Elbow,! mufl fpeake with him. 
Ser. Sir fohn. 

Fai.\\'h.nin yong knaue and beg?Is thQrc not wars?!* 
there not imp!oyment:'Doih not the K.lack fubiciVs? Do 
pot the Rebels wan: Soldiers?Thoogh it be a fiiamc to be 



17* 



00 



100 



(4) 
150 



'200,1? 



250 



37i 
300 

17^ 



17i 
350,1 



(5) 



400 



450 



500 

(3) 



550 



600 



ThefecondTmt^ofK^g Henry the Fcurth, 



h 50 

U) 

1/' 



h 100 
150 



(0) 
200 



250 



aoo 



350 



400 



450 

\h 

(2) 

500 



on any Cide but one, it is worfe fhamc to bcgge, then to 
» be on the wovft fitlc,\verei: vvorlc thenihename of Re- 
I bellior can teli now to ma^ ic. 
Ser, Youmiftaken)cSif« 

:Fal. Why fit? Did 1 fay you were an honcft manPSet- 
tingmyKoight-hoodj'andmySouidicr&ipafidej 1 had 
lyfdin my throat, ifl hitf faid fo, 

Ser. I pray you "(Sir) then let your Knighthood and 
yotif Soulflicr-fliip afidc, and giuc mcc icaiio to tell you, 
youlyeinyoutthroic, tfyoufayl amany othfF then an 
honeft man. "^ 

F4I. Igiuc thceIc2Mto tellmcfo? Hay a-fide that 
which growts to inc? If thou gei'R anylcaucofinc,hati^ 
mc : if thou tak'ft leauc,thou wct't bitter be hang'd :you 
Hun:-counter,hcncc : Atiant. 
Ser. S'.r,rnv Loni would fpcake with you, 
7k/?. Sir /«/j« Falfiafca word with yoti, 
FafMy good Lord :giue your Lcrdlliip good time of 
theday lamglad tofecyout Lordfhip abroad: I heard 
fayyour loidfhipwasficke. i hope your Lordfhip goes 
abroad by jduife Your Lordfi-iip (though not clean pafi 
yout youth)hath vet fomc ffnsci" ot age in you: (bmc lel- 
lifh otthe Calcncfic cfTinic, and I mod humbly befcech 
your Lordlliip.i o haue a rcuerend care of yourheaUh. 

/»/. S\tIol:i:, lientyota befoicyour Expedition, to 
Sbrcwsburie. 

Fal. Ifitpleafcyoiir Lordfl)ip,I hearehis Maicfiie is 
Kturnd with fomc difcomfort from Wnles. 

/»/?. I talkcnoiofliisMaiefly : yoawpuld not come 
when I fent for you ? ~"^ 

Fa[. And 1 heare t:ioreouer,hIs Highnefltis falne into 
^sfamewboifon Apoplcxie. Cy"'- 

7«^.\VeIl,hcaucnmend him. T pray let mefpcik with 
Fttt. This ApoplexJcisfasItakcicjakindof Ltinin 
gie, a deeping of the bicod.a hoi fon Tingling, 
Jnfi, Whattcllyoumcpf it t be it as it is. 
Fal, It hath it original! from much greefc; froin ftndy 
indperturba:ionof die braine. 1 haueread ihecaiife ot 
his efFeiSs in Caltn. Ic is a kinde of deafcnelTe. 

Injt._ Ithinkcycuare faincintoihcdilcafc; Foryou 
heare not what I lay to y ou. 

FaL Vety wc]l(iTiy Lord )very well : rather yn'tpjeafe 
you) iiisthedifcafcofnot Liflning, tlie malady oT not 
Marking, that 1 am troubled wichall. 

hfl. Topunifliyoubythehceles, would amend the 
Jttention oFyour cares,& I care not ifl be your Phy fitian 
F«[. I am as poore as /i»^,my LordjbutnotfoPaticnt: 
your Lordfhip may minifter the Potion of imprifonment 
to me.in refpe£t of Poucrtic : but how { fiiould bee your 
Paticnt.to follow your prefcriptions, the wile may make 
fome dram of a fcrupIe,or indecde,a tcrupic it lelfe. 

foft. I fent foryou(whenchercwcrc matters againft 
you toi your life) to come fpeakc with me. 

Pal. A$ I was '.'..'.v\ aduifed By my learned Councel.in 
lihelawes of this Land-feruice, 1 did not come. 
/«/?.Wel,thc truth i$(i'ir lohn)you line in great infamy 
Fal.tie that buckles him in my bclc.canot liue in lefTc. 
JuJf.Yoat Mcanet is very flender,and your waft great. 
Fal. I woiildit^vvcic othcrwife : 1 would my Mcanes 
fftre greater, and my waflc flent.'erer. 

/'«/?. Yoa haucmiHcd thcyouthfu!! Prince. 
fal. The ypng Prince hath mifled mec. lam the Fel- 
ow with the great belly, and he my Dogge. "" 

/«_/?. Well,! am loth to gall ancw-heal d wound;your 
dales feruice at Shrewsbury, hath a little gilded ouet 
your Nights exploit on Gads-hill. You may thankc the 



77 



vnquict time, for your quiet orc-poftnig that Aftion. 

Fa!. My Lord f (Wolfe 

/«/?.But Gnci ail is wcKkeep it fo: wake no: a Ueeping 

Fxi. To wake a WoIfc,isas bad as to frnTSI a Fox. 

/«. WhatPyou areas a candle,Webetter patt burnt out 

Fal. AWa(rell-Candle,myLord;allTailow:ifIdid 
faY of wax,my growth would spproue me tiuth. 

/«/?. There is not a white iiaitc on your face,but£hoId 
haise his efreft of grauity. 

FaL His eftc<Jlofgrauy, grauy, grauy. 

/«/? You follpw the yong Fnncc vp and downc, like 
hiscuill Angell, ■"" — ~ 

Tal. Not fo (my Lord) your ill'XiTf ell is light : but I 
hope, he ihatl'ookcs vpon mcc, will take mee without, 
weighing": and ye:. in fome rcfpeih [ grant, I cannot go J 
I cannot tell.Vertiie is of fo little regard in tbefc Coflor. 
nioi!^s,that true valor is turii'd Bearc-heard, Pregnane 
cTc'iTmsdcaTapfter, and hath his auicke wit wafted in 
giuing ReckYiings : all the oth^r gifts appertinent to man 
\as the ifTSrr^'^fthls Age fhapcs them) ;»re not woorth a 
Goofcberry, \ou that arc old , confidcrnotihc'c'a'pairi- 
tics ofvs that arcyong: you meafcretnc. heat ofctitr'Ij- 
uers,\vith the bictetnciiofycur gals: & wethjt areinthe 
■" vaward of our youth, 1 muft confcfle,are wagges too, 

/?</?. Do you fctdo\OTF^nut name in the Icrowlcof 
youth.that are written downc old^ wTih all the Charrac- 
ters of agcPhaue you not a moiTFeye ? a dry hand? a yel» 
lowfheekePa white be?id? a decrcaling leg? an increfing 
belly? ] s not your voice broken.'yout windc fliottPyout 
wic (ingleP an Jciiieiy part about you bhfted with Ant i- 
qiiitvf'and wilyducal youriclfc yong?Fy,fv,fy, lir/afo;. 
F.it, My Lord,l was borne w'lth a whire he .'d, 6C fom- 
ihii'g a round belly.For my yoicc,! I'.aue loft it with hd- 
lowingand fingingofAnthemes.Toapprouemy youth 
farther J will not: the truth is» I am cnely olde in iudgc= 
merit and vnderftandmg: and he that will capetwithraee 
for a thoulVind MsrkeSjlei him lend niethe irony, echauc 
at him. For the bosc of ih'care that ib? Prince gaucyou, 
he gaue it 1 ike a rude Prihce.ind you tooke it like a fenfi- 
bleLord. Ihauechecktiiimforit.fd the yong lioii re- 
pents ; Marry not in a flies and fac!.i-cIoi;hj fUt inncw 
Silke.aijK^oltiSackc, *" 

/f//?.WcI-hcaucn fend the Prince a better companion. 

F.il, Heauen fend the Companion a better Prince : 1 
cannot rid my hands of him. "^'~" 

/»/?. VVell,the KniG hath fcuer'd you and PrinccHw- 
»-/,l hcarc ynu are going with Lord /"ha of Lancafter, a- 
gainft the Apc hSifhop,and the Esrlc of Northumberland 

FaL Ycs,I ihankeyour pretty fweet wit folic : but 
tookeyou pray, (all you that kiife my Ladic Peace, at 
home)thafi: our Armies ioyn not in a hot day: for if I take 
but two fhirts out with me,and I nieanc not to fweat ex- 
traordinarily : fit bee a hot day, ifl branSifh any thing 
but my Bottle, would I might neiJer fpit white againe : 
There is not a daungcrous AiSion can pcepe out his head, 
but I amthruftvDon it. Well,! cannot lafteuer. 

/«/. Well,bc honcf^,be honeft,and heauen bleflcyour 
Expedition. '" , 

r.tl. Will your Lordftiip lend mec a thoufand j^onodj 
tofatnifhmefortb^ """ 

fiijl. Notapeny, naTapeny:you are too itrpotietw 
tobcarecrolTcs. FareyouwCil. Comroeiid mee to toy 
CobnWeftmerland. ■ 

- FaL Tf I do.fillop me with a Three-man-Beetfe, A man 
can no more feparate Age and Couetouiheflc,tiKn be can 
part yong limbes and leichery : buzthe Gowigalles the 



F» 



L 3i , 



577 -(34) -7/1. 



6io-(ia) -6/1. 



;o 



00 



50 



3) 
00 

:3) 



50 

2) 
!/( 

00 



50 

2) 



78 ^he fecondTart ofK^ingHemy the Fourth. 



onc,and the pox pinches the other j and fo both the De- 
grees pteuecit my curfes. Boy? ^~' 

PAge, Sir. 

FtiL What money is in my purfc ? 

Page. Sicucii groats^iand iwo pence. 

Tal. I can get no remedy againft this Confumptlon of 
thepurfe. Borrowing onc!ylingers,»and linwcrsitouc, 
but the difeafclslncuTeable. Go beate this letter to my 
Lord of Lancaflcr, this to thePrince,this to the Estle of 
Wcftmerland. olid this to old Miftris Vrfala, whome 1 
hauewccWy fwornctomarrVj, f.nce 1 pcrcciu'd the fiift 
white hairc on my chill. About it: you kaow where to 
findemc. ApoxofthisGowt, oraGowtofthisPoxe: 
jfor the one or th'oihcr phyes the rogue wftfi my great 
toe : It is no matter, if I do halt,l haue the warres for my 
colour,and my PcniionTliaUfcemethemore reafonable. 
A gnod^tt will make vfe of any thing : 1 will turiie dif- 
cales ro commodity. j(;.j_ Exeunt 



Scena Quarta, 



1) 
00 

-h 



50 1 



Enter z^rckbi!hop,Hafii>ig!y'Jllewbray, and 
Lord's ardolfi^ 
^r.Thushaue you heard our caufcs.Si kno our Means : 
And my moft noble Friends. I pray you aTT 
Spcake plainly your opinions of our hopes; 
Aiid firft(Loid Marniali)what fay you to it ? 

AJ«xt>. I well allow the cccafion of our Armc^, 
But gladly would be better fatisRed, 
Kow (in our Meancs j yvc fliould aduance our felues 
To looke with forheadFoId ard big enough 
Vpon the Power and puHance of the King. 

Hafi. Oar prefenc Muftcrs grow vpon thcFile 
To fiue and twenty thoufand men of choice : 
Andou'rSupplies.liueJargely inthehope ■ 
OfgrcatNorthumFrrl.ind,whofeboromeburnes 
With an incenfed Fire of Iniiirics. 
L.Bar. The qucfliosi then(Lord Hafiinns] thndcth . thus 
Vv^hether out prefent fine and twenty thoufano^^ 
May hbld-v p-h cad,without Northumberland: 

^a^J VVj t^ KTiTi , v; c m n y . 

L-iar. I marry jtheve's the point: 
But if without him we be thought to feeble . 
My iudgcment is,wc fiiouKi not ftep toofarre 
Jill we had his Afsiftancc by the hand. 
ForinaTheamrfo bloody fac'd,3s this, 
Conieflure, Expe>:tation,and Stirmife 
Of Aydes incettaine^flW.d not be admitted 

■Arch. 'Tis very true Lord "BdrdolfeSox indeed 
It was yong Hatfjinrres cafe, at Shrcwibury. 

h.Bxr, Ic was(my Lord)who lin'd himklfwith hope, 
Eiting ^ ayrc, on promife of Supply, 
Flatt'ringhimfclfc v/ith Pro'ieft of a power. 
Much fmullcr, then rhe fmalleltofhis Thoughts, 
And fo with great imagination 
(Proper to mad mtw ) led his Powers to death . 
And (winking) leap'd into delhuiSlion. , 
" PUfi. But(byyourleaue)itneueryetdidh-;_'-, 
To lay downe likely-hoods,and formes of hope. 

L.Lat. Yc3,if,thisprcfent quality of warre. 
Indeed the ir.llant aflion: a caufc on foot, 
Liucs fo in hope : As in an early Spring, 
\Vc ice th'appeiring bu Js,which to proue fruite, 
Hope giucs not fo much warrant, as Difpairc 
That Frofts will bite them. When wemcanetobuild^ 
We fitft futacy the Plot.thcn cUaw the Modcllj, 



And when we fee the figure of the houie. 

Then muft we rate the coft of the Erc£lionj 

WKi'ch if we finde out-weighes Ability, 

What (Jo we then, but draw a-new the Model) 

In fewer offices i Or atleaR, dcfift 

To builde at all ? Much more, in this great worTce. 

(Which is (almoft) to plucke a Kingdomc downc 

And fct another vp)fliould we furuey 

Theplot of Situation, and the Modell ; 

Confent vpon a fure Foundation : 

Queflion Surucyors, know our ownc cflattfj, 

How able fuch a Worke to vndcrgo, 

To weigh againft his Oppo(itc?Or clfc» 

We fortifie in Papcr,and ihFigures, 

Vfing the Names of tiien, infiead of men : 

Like one,that drawei the Modell ofalioufe 

Beyond his power to builde it; who(halfe througli) 

Giucs oVe, and leaues his part-creatsd Coft 

A naked fubiedlEolTie Weeping Clouds, 

And wafte,for chiirlifh Winters tyfaliffy. 

Ilafi. Grant that our hones(yetlikc]y of faire byrtli^ 
Should be ftill-borne . an3mat we now poflcft 
The vtniolt man of cxpccSaticn : 
I thin"Kcvv"c arc a Body ftrong enough 
(EUen as we are) to equaTrvTith the King, 

Z/.^-ir.What is the King but fine & twenty thoufand ? 

//^/?. To vs no more : nay not fo much Lord "Bardolfi 
For his diuKions (as the Tinies do braul) 
Arc in three Heads : one Power againft the French, 
And one againft G'.eHdower: Perforce a third 
Muft take vp vs : So is the vnfirme King 
In three diuidcd : an^ his Coffers found 
With hollow Ppaercy,and Emptincfle. 
c-Yr.Thac he fiiould'draw liis feii'^rall ftrength's togithg 
And come againft vs in full puiflance 
Need not be drraded 

Hafl. If he (hould do fo, 
He leaues his backe vnarm'd, thcprench.and Welch 
Saying him at the hecles : ncuer fearc that. 

L<'Bar. ' Whoisit likcfhould lead his Forces hither 

JI^J}. The Duke ofTane3fter,and Wcftmerland : 
Againft the Weifh hirofelfc, and Hiirrie Monmonth. 
But vyho is fubftituted 'gainft the French, 
I haue no certainc notice . 

.Arch. Letvson: 

And publilh the occafion ofouf ATwci,-, 

The Common-wealth is ficke of their' owns Choice^ 

Their ouer.grecdy loue hath '"'irfetted : 

An hibitation giddy, and vnliire 

Hath JT^thatbuildethonthe vulgar heart. 

O thou fond Many, with what loud opplaufe 

Did'ft thou bedtcneauen with blcfling 'BuHrngbrookfi 

Before he v/as,what thcu wouIJTFhaue iiim be ? 

And being now trimm'd in thine owne dcht es, 

Thou (beaftiy Fecder}3rt fo full of iiim, 

That thou prouok'ft thy'fdfe to caft him vp 

So,fo,(thou commonDogge) did'ft thou difgorgC 

Thy glutton-bofome of the Roysll Richard, 

And now thou would'ft eate thy dead vomit vp. 

And howlft to finde it. What trisft is in thefe Times ? 

Thev,th3twlienig/V/j<8r^liu'd. wpuld haue him dye. 

Are now become enamour'd on his graii' ° 

Thou that threw'ft duft vp6n his goodly 1. ) 

When throijoh proud London he came fighing OH, 

After th^cfmired hceles ofSaHiag^roohe, 

Cri'ft now. O Eartiryecld vs that King; agine, 

—^ And 



4:G^-(TTy- 3/t. 



461 — (32)- 7/1. 



'^ 



(5 



100 



ThefecondTart ofK^iHenry the FcunL 



19 



And take thou this (O thoughts of men accurj'd) 
PafltiHdto Come,feetHes l>ejf; things Prefentyorfi; 
Mow. Shall we go dr^w ournumbers,and fet ort ? 
Hall.We areTimcs fubieds.and Time bids, be goat> 



150 



200 
ih{3) 



250 



1/. 



350 






450 



61 



JBhs SccundiiT, Scma Tnma, 

^nter Hojtslfe.vairh (wn O^icers.F.wgy^and Snart 

//»i7fjyi. Mr.frfw.haucyou cntred the Adion ? 

fdwf. Itisenterd. 

Hoihfe. Wher'i your Ycomanflsit aluHy ycomgni 
Will he Ihnd to U ? 

f /i«^. Sirrsb, where' s Snare f 

'Uodffe- IJjgood M.Snare., 

/jBijrtf, Hecrc,hccre. 

Fait^. Sn<ire,vie muQ Arrcft S\r lofm faljtaff. 

'Hofi. I good M.5*(«rir,I haue entei d hlrn,fandalf« 

5».lt may chance coft feme of vs our liucs:hc wil flab 

Hojhjfe.^ Ahs the day: take heed of iiioi : he ftsbd nic 
in mine ovvnchouf*?, and that molibealtly: becarcs not 
what mifchccfe he doth, ifhis weapon be oul._Hce^^iU 
foynclikeanydiucll.hc willlpate neither man, woniEnj 
norchilJe. 

Fa«£. If lean clofc with bim,I care nocforhisthriifi. 

HoBijfe.. No,nor I nei ihcr : 1 ic be ar your elbow 

fani. If Ibucfift himoncerifhtcoaicbutwuhiniTi^ 
Vice. . 

.flofi. 1 am vndone with his going:! warrant he Is an 
infimtiucthingvponmyfcorc. Good M.F<jwj hold him 
fure:good M. Snare Ice him not fcape, he comes continu- 
antly to Py-Corrier(niuingyoiirmanlioods)to buy a fad- 
die, and lice is indited to dinner to the I.ubbars head in 
Lombstdftrectjto M.Snioothes the Silkmsn.I praye,(incs 
my txion is entet'd,ind my'Cafcfo openly known tothe 
world.lethimbebioi^ght into his anfwer: A loo.Marke 
is along one,for a poorc lone woman to bearc: & 1 hauei 
borne,andborne,2nd borne, and haue bin fub'doff, and 
fubd-offj from thisday to that day, thatitisafhami^to 
bethoughcon.There is no honefty in fuch dealing, vnlcs 
a woman fhould be made an Arte and a Eeart, to bearc e- 
iify KnaiiC! wrong. Enter Falfiaffe and Jardolfe, 

Yonder he comes, and that arrant Malmcfey-Nofe54r- 
(/»//« with him.Do your Ofliccs, do your oflkes:M.F.i'?j, 
& M.5»(i«,do me.do mCjdo me your Offices. 
f4/.How nowfwhofc Mare's dead?what's the matter ? 

P/jK^. SKlohnJ arreft you,at the fuitof Mift-^/tf^/y, 
Falfi. AwzyVzt\ns,6iiVi'Bitrdalfe : Cut me oft the 
Villaines head; throw thcQiieane in the Channel. 

fle^.Throw me in the channell?IIc throw thee thcrcj 
Wilt thou?wilt thou^thou baftardiy rogue. Murder.mur- 
der.O thouHony-fuckle villainejWilt tkou kill Gods of- 
ficeis,and the Kings? O thou hony-feed Rogac,ihou ate 
ahonyfeed.aMan-queHer,and a woman-queller. 

Fal^. Keep them of?,Bardilfe. Fang.k rcfcu,a rcfcu, 
Hofl. Good people bring a rcfcu.Tliou wilt not?thou 
Wilt not? Dojdo thou Rogue. -Do thou Hempfccd 

P^^tf. Away you S cullion, you Rampalhan, you Fufiil- 
lirian: lie tucke your Cataflrophc. Enter. Ch.Iufiice, 

^ttfl. What's thc'.Tiatcer? Kecpe the Peace here, hoa. 
fJoJ}. Good tny Lord be good to met. Ibefccchyou 
^Jandconie. 

Cklufl.HoiN now fir /«&»?VVhat are ycubrauling hcrei' 
Doth thi<: become your place,your time^and bufinefle ? 
You (hould hauebene well o,n your wayioYorke* 
Stand from him Fcllowjwhcrsforchang'ft vponhJnj •' 



//e/?._ Ohmy moft worlhipf iill Lord^and'irpleaftyour 
Grace,! am a poos e widdow.of Eaflchcap^and hcis arre^- 
ftid at my fait^ Ch. JufiXat whacfUmme > 

ihll.lt\s more then {brrome(my^ord)itis foralltali 
Ihaue.hehath eaten mtouircjf houfeandhomciheehath 
put all my fubftancc into that fat belly ofhij I. burXwill 
haue f jms of it cue againe^-^tl willride'hicca'Niehts, 
like the Mare, 

f/i{/?. IthinkelamasIikcjtQ.rideriieMarcj iCliaue 
iny vantage of ground.tb get vp. 

Ch-.IiijL^How cometthis,Sir7«;5«i' Fy^wfiataman of 
good temper would cndurcthistempeftot exclamation? 
Are you not sQiam'd to inforcea poorc- Widdcwe to ib 
rough a courfe.to come by her owncif 

Ful/}.. What is the grofle fumnjc ihar I owe tiice^ 
7y»/?.' Marry (ifthouwcr'taniriticftman)thyfclfc»& 
themonytoo. Thoudidrtfweatitomec vponaparcell 
gilt Goblctjfitiing in my Dolphm-thambcr at the round 
table,by a fea-cole firemen Wednefday in Whiilbn week. 
when tuc Princcbrokc thy head for lik'ning him toafiij- 
gingin3nofWindfor;Thoudiiiftl"wearetometheu(as.l 
was vvafhing thy wound)to marry me.and make meemy 
l.ady thy wiferCanft y deny it ? Did not: good wife JCeech 
the Butchers wife come in thcn.and cai me goflip^^iciS;; 
/;? comming in to borrow a mcffe of Vinegar: teliingys, 
(he had a good d\{h of Prawnesiwbereby ^ didft dcfire to 
cat fomc :- whereby I told thee they were ill for a greenc 
xvound? And didft not thou (wh»n flic was gone downe 
flaires)defire me to be no more familiar with fuch poorc 
pcople.faying.ihat ere long they (hould call me Madam? 
And did'ft "^ not kiffe iTie,3nd.bid mee fetch thee JQ.S? J 
put thee nOfW to thy Book-oath.denY it if ihoucruift> 
' F^!. My Lord,thii is a poorc mad lbule:and (he layes 
vp & downe the town, that her eldcft foa is likeyou.Shc 
hath bin in good cafe.& the trutn is^ pouetty hath diffra.: 
(Sed her : but for thefe rooiifli Officers, I bcfecch jrou^ 1 
may baue redreffe againft them. 

'Ififi. Sir /oSw.ftr/c^w.I am well acquainted with your 
maner of wrenching the true caufe,thc falfc way.lt is not 
a confident brow, nor the throng of wordes, that come 
with fuch (more then impudcat)faw<ines froip you, can 
thrurt mefromaleuellconridcration,! knowiyouha'pra- 
tlii'd vpon the cafie-ycelHingfpiritof this woman, 
^ Hoff, Yes in troth my Lord, - 

./«/,Prechee peace:pay her the debtyou oweher, and 
vnpay the rillany you haue done hcr:the oiicyou maydo 
with rtoriing mony,&; the other with currant repentance, 

Fal. My Lor^, I will nor Tndcr go this fneape without 
reply You call honorable Boldiies,impudcntSawcineffc: 
If a man wil curtficand fay nothing,hc is vertuous : Nc, 
my Lord(your humble duty remcbred)! will not beyour 
futor.l fay to you,I defire dcliu'ranc^ from thefe Officer* 
being vpon haOy employment in the Kings Affaircs- 

/«/. You(peakc,ashauingpowertodowrong; But 
anfwer in the effcia of your Reputation, and fatisfie the 
poorewomau,. 

F^/y?. Come hither FToflelTc. StiterTa.iJtwirr 

Ch./ufi, Now Matter (jow^r; VVhatnewcs? 

Cow .The King(my Lord) and Henrie Ptintc of Wales 
Are neere at hand: The reft the Paper icUcJ, 

j-al/l. As I am a Gentleman,. 

//«/?. Nay ,you faid fo before, 

Fal. As I am aGentleman.Cooie.no more wordsetf ii 

Flofi. By this Heauenly ground I tread on. 1 muftbe 
faine to pawne bothmy Phtc,and tncTapiftry of tBjrdy- 



ning Chainberii. 



FMJl. 



O )l6 — ^b ; 



598 -(29) -4/i. 



h 






The fecondTart c/S^ Henry tloeFmtL 



■'. Fal. GUfleSjglaffcs, isthe onely drinking : and tor 
thy walks a pre:ry flight Drollery, ortne Storie oFthf 
Prodlgall, orche Germanehunting in Vv2terworke.-is 
vrerih a thoufand of thcfe Bed-hangings, andthefe Fly- 
bit-tenTspinrics. Let itbctennepound (ifthoucanft.) 
Come, if k wf te not for try liunior s, there is not a bctrct 
Wench in England. Go.wa'nnFy face, ^nd draw thy 
AflioP. : Come, thoa muffnol bee in this hutnout with 
mCjCome, I know thou wasTfi^on tothis. 

//«/?. P;:etbcc(Srr7^t«;!etit be buttwenty Nobles, 
I loath to paw'ne my Platcin good earncfl la. 

gat • Let it olohe, Ik make-other fliift :you'l bea fool 

Jftill. 

Hoff. Well, you fhall hauc it although I pawne my 
Gownc. Thopeyou'l come to Supper; You'l pay meal- 
together ? 

f<j/.iWillIIiuec'Gowithher,withher : hookc-on, 

hooke-on. 

Hojl, Will you hauc Doll Teare-pyeet meet you at fup - 

FaI. No more words. Let's hauelicr. 

Ch.hU. I haue heard bitter newes. 

Fill What's thencwes (my good Lord?) 

^^,/«. 'Wherelay the Knig laft night ? 

,/J/f/^ AtBafiRgftokemy Lord. 

:cal. I hope (,my Lord>!l's well. What is the Viewes - 
my Lord? 

Ch.Iufi,' Corns all hiiForces backe? 

Jl^ef. No: FifteenehuadredFoot,fiLiehl3Uai;e^orfe 
Are roarch'd vp to my Lord of Lancafter. 
AgainftNorthumbcrhnd.and the Avchbillicp. 

fal I Comes the Kingbaclce frorr* Waies.my nobjct? 

Ch.Ififi. You (hall h:iue Letters' of meprcfentryT' 
Comcig^along With me,gcod M. Comf. 

pal. My Lord. 

CbJufl. •What's the matter? 

Tal. ■ M*rtcr Cmre;-: ft) all i cntreate you with mec to 
dinner ? 

C?oB'.^ I muft waite vpon my good Lord hecre. 
I thankcyou,good Sir/eW 

ChJffl: Sir M'»>youloyterhecrCtoo long beingyou 
are to take Sould^crs yp, in Countries as you go. 

pal. Will you fup witli me.Maftcr Gwj-f? 

jChJfiJf. What foolilli Maftertaughc you thefe man- 
ners. Sir /(?^«? 

FaL Ma'Jer Gowr. if they become mee not.-heewasa 
Foolcthat taught them mce. This is the right Fencing 
gcacc (my Lord) tap tor tap .and io part faite. 

Chjufi: Now the Lord lighten thee, ihouatt a great 

:i3S - (12 )-'ih 



(2) 



50 



iO 



ScenaSecunda, 



EhurPntice'TTiim, Point z., .BaYdolfe, 
and Tdge. 
3?>^«r.«Tlultme,I am exceeding weary. 
P<»j»« Isii come to that? Ihad "thought wearines darft 
miitfc^ueauach'd one offo high blood. 

^JS&e*It'dotnme:4h0Mghitdi<colonrs the complexion 
cPmjr<5rea{Heffc;to acknowledge it. Doth it not'fhcw 

IViMdy imtje,-to defuc ImSU Becre? 
Pfl/». Why,aPrincc{bouldnoibcfoloofeIy fludied. 



100 



(15) 



250 



as to rememberfoweake aCompofition. 

Prince, BeHkeihen, rny Appetite was hot Princely 
got"; for (in noth) I do now remember the poore Crea- 
ture, Small Beere. But indeedethefe humble torfidera- 
lionsmake tncoutof louewithniy GreaincfTe. WhaTa 
Jilgrace is it to me, to remember thy natne? Or to know 
thy face to morrow ? Or to take note howrnany pairecf 
Silk ftockings y hafli (Viz.thcfe,3nd thofe tlist w>cre thy 
pcach-colourdonc5:)Ortobearc thelnuentorieof ih') (•') !'*■ 
fiiirts, as one for fuperfii;ity,and oneotberifor vfe. But 
th.-it the Tennis-Court-kcepcrknowcs better theni, for 
itisaloweT)bcofLinnen with thee, when thou kept'i^ j^qq 
not'Racke: there, as thou haft not done a great while,be- 
caufe the reft of thy Low Countrie5,haue made a fhift to 
eatevpthyfifolland. 

PoiK. How ill it followcs, after you haiie labour'd fo 
hard.you fhould talkc (o idleiy? Tell mc how many goodl (^50 
yong Princes would do fo, their Fathers lying fo ficke; as 
yours is? 
Tr'ti. Shall I tell thee one thing, pointz, ? 
Poiu. Yes : .ind let it be an excellent good thing. 
Prin, Itihallferueamongwittesofno higher breed 
ing then thine, I 

I'd;!. Goto : I ftintlthepufliofyouronc thing, fW] 
yoa'l tell. 

Pri>t. Why, X tell thce,lt is not meet, that 1 fhould be 
fadnowniyFstherisfickei-albeit I could tell tothcc(as 
to one It plcafes me.for fault ol abetjer,to call my friend) 
J could be fad^artd (id indeed too* J; 
Poin. Very hardly vpon Jbch a fubit£t. 
Prin. Thout3i!nk'An?e as'farrcm thcDiucfs Boole, as 
thou,and F(»//?<«^)-for-obdaracie and perRftcncic. Let the 
end try the man.' But L tell thee, my hartbieeds inward- 
ly , that my Faiher is fo ficTiti ihd kVeping fuch vild com- 
pany as thou artjiiath in rcafon taken from me, ail'often- 
tatronoffo'/row. 
Poin? The reafon? 

T'rw.What-would'ftthoutlitnTcorme.tfl fhold weep? 
Pott}. I wouKlthinke thee a moft Princely hypocrite. 
Ptiit.. Jcwouldbeeuery mans thought : snd thou art 
a bleftcd FcIloWjtothinkcasebcryman thinkes Tiieucra 
mans thought in the-wojld,'keepcs the Rodc-way better 
tlicn thine : cuery man would thinkeme an Hypocrite in- 
dccVe." And what accitesyourmoftworfhipful thought 
tothinkefo? 

PcZ/j.Whyjbecaufe you haue beeneXolewde, and fo 
ijiuch ingraffcd to Falfta^e^ 
Prin. And to thee. 

Peintu. Nay, I am wellfpolcen of, I can beare it with 
mine owne cares :the war ft that they can fay ofmc is.thai 
I am alecoftd Brother, and that I am a proper Fellov^'e of 
my hands : and thofe two things I confeffe I canoe bclpe. 
Looke,looke,here romes "Bardolfc. 

/'r/»f*.= 'Andthe Boy that! ^aaeFafflafe, he nadTiim 
from me Gbfiftian,and fee it the fat villain haue not trans 
form'dhim'iftpc, 

1 
Emer Sardelfe. 
'Bur, Sflue your Grace. 
Prin, And yours,moft Noble !2;f>'io/5fJ', 
Poit). Gome you pernitiousAflTcjyoubanifull Foolej 
muft you beblulhing ? Wherefore blufli you now? what 
a MaidcnlymanatArmes arc you become ? hit fuch 4 
matterto get a Pottle-pots Maiden-bead ? 

Pagt^. He call'd me euen now (my Lord)through (fred 
Lattice, andl could difccrnenopart of bis face from th* 

window- 



300 



:J50 



too 



450 



500 3 

(2) 



\i\\\i - U-v J 






yli - f'2S)- i;/i 



Hi 



2)50 

1/' 



r 



150 



^hefccowdTart ofE^g Henry the Fourth, 



Si 



(14.) 
'200 

(2'> 



250 



1/t 

aoo 



•iO 



40( 



window : a: iaft I fpy'd his eyes, and n\z ^tioudic he had' ] 
nude two holesjn the A!e-wiucs new PeuiGosr, 5: pec-- j 
pcd througlir ~— — 

friit. Hathnottlicboyproficed? j 

"iBm: Away.^ouhorloiivprif^htRabbct.awaj- j 

fage^ A way, you rafcaliy AlthcM dreame.awa^-. i 

/'//Vi Ififlriscl VI Boy : wlisc drcan-'e, Boy .' ! 

Pfige. Marry (my. Loidl ^ilthe.'. dresm li, Qie was dc- 
Ijuev'dof aFirebrand,and chcfeforc I call him |Ty_'-djrcani< 

^mcc, iVCrowncs-worch'of go0d Interpretation • 
There it is. Boy. 

poifi. O that this good BioCfomc could bee k^pt From 
Cankers : WcUjihere isfixpencetoprefcr^jcthce. 

*Bard, If^oudonotmakehimbehintj'd^inongyoa, 
th'eg^llowes (hall be wrong'd. 
' Princf. And how doth th-f M after. B.irdof^h ? 

' "BaY. Well, my good Lord ; he heard of your Gr:cct 
^amtning to Tawoe. There's a Letter for yrii. 

TotH. Deliuer'd with good rcfpcd: And how doth the . 
Msrtlemas. your Mafter ? 

IBarcL. In bodily hsalthSfr. 

?«■«. '.Marry, the iminorrailpi^tncedes a Pbyfitian.- 
borthacmouesnothim; thousjh thatbee ficke, it dyes 
nor. 

Prince: I do allow this Weti to bee as, familiar with 
iHc.at my dogge'randheholdi. his place, tor'lookcyou 
'ic writes. 

Peitt.Letter. ■ Tohtt Fafjl.tjfe Knight : (Eueryman'mufl 
know that.asoft a J hee4iach occalion to name bimfelfe:) 
Eucnlike thole tha^arckinne to the King, foritiey neuer 
pricke their finger, but they fay,thereis Tom of the kings 
blood fpiit. How comes that ( fayes he) that takes vpon 
him not CO conccine? the anfwer is as ready jj a borvow- 
t'A cap : I am the Kings poove Cofin,Sir. 

'printe. Nay, they vv.ll be kin to vs.biiE they vvil fetch 
itTrom /rt^/jff.. Eiittft the Letter: ; —^SirJehnFaf^afe, 
Kmj^hti to the SoKtie of the Kmg^ neerefi^ Father, Harrit 
Prme of W'ales, greeting. ^ 

'piin. Why this is^^Ccrtificate. 

yrin. Peace. 
tv/iU imitate the hontrurnhk Ramainesin IreHJtiei 

foi»i Sure he mcanes brcuicv in breath: fiiort-vvlnded. 
I commendnff tx) tbc:^ I commend thee .ukA Ileanethee., Bee 
net too familiar with Point/., for kce mifiifis th\ Fi^mtirsfo 
pmch, that hefwearcs thou art to marric hJj 5//?fr Nell. Re^ 
fent fit tile timet tu thou }:->ajfi,i:udfofirewell. 

Thine ybj yea and no : which is. as mnch f.s tafay, as thoii 
vfeji him. '• lacke ?sl nartc r^iih nty FawiliArst 
John vptth ntj- "Broiheys andSilter:(y Sir 
lolin, with all Europe. 
My Lord. I will' ftccpe this Letter in Sack, and makchim 
eatcit. 

Ff'if, That's'tomalichimeatctwentyofhis Wort[j. 
Butdoyou vfc mcthus A'fi^? Muf] I qjaiKj'yourS^fter? 

;yw». May the Wench haue no worte Fortune. ^I I 
neuer faid lo. 

Prifi.WcWi thus wc play the Faolej w'ith the time tl 
i^efpints-ofrhewiie,luiniheclouds,andniockc vs : Is 
^ur Mafter hccre in London ? 

^ard. Yes my Lcid. 

Priv. Where fuppes He ? Doxh the old Sore, feede ill 
the old FtSflke? 

"Bard.Ai the old place my Lord, in EaS-cheape. 

7'riH. What Company? 

Page. Ephefiansrov Lord,oftheold Church. 

Prm, Sup any women with hini.* 



Pt^6. NoneinyLord^nt ol<JMiftrisJ^3«^',andM 
DclLTetxre-fheet: 

frin. What Pagan may that be ? 

Page- A proper Gentle woman.Sir, and a Kinfwornan 
ofojy Mafters. 

't'rln. EuenfL-chKin, ascheParifii Hcyforsareto the 
Townc-Buil ? ~ 

Shall we fteaie vpon them {Ned) at Supper? 

.Font. 1 am your iriadow,my Lord, lie follow you. 

Prm. Sirrah,youboy,3nd'Z'.;?«/i.,^/.(, novi;oid loyour 
MaHcr that I am^'ct in Towne. 
Therc'i for your filcnce. 

Bar, 1 haue no tongue, fir. 

P-tge. And for mine Sir, I will goucrne it. 

Erin. Farcycv.e!I:go. 
This DoRTetire iheet fiiouldi)e fome Rode. 

Foin. I warrant xou,a3 common as the way betwc^nl 
S.Alba,ns,3nd Lon<Jon4 

PriK. How niiL'hi weCceFdlJfaffe bcftow.himfelfe to 
night, n his true colQi!rs,and not cur fclues l>e fccne.'' 

Piia Put ontwo Leather f<rl;in5, and Aprons, and 
wa tc vpon him jc his Tabic, like Drawers. 

Frin. From a God, to a EuL? A heaurc dedenfion : It 
wasloues cafe. From a,Ptince,toa Prenticc,aiowttanC. 
formation, that fliallheminerforineucryThing.thcpur- 
pofc muft weigh with the foUy. Follow me Ned. : Exeunt 

I So (1) dh 

Scena Tertfa. 



Enter Northtim^erLwd,hisLadie,(indHiir.rii 
PercieiLndie. 

ISTorth. I pretheelouing VVif?,and gentle Daughter^ 
Guieancuen way vnto my rough Affaires:; 
Put not you on the vifageof the Times, 
^£cibeliketbemiopercie;troublefome« 

ffife. 1 haue giuen oucr. I will fpeak no more, 
Do what you will : your Wil'edomc, be your guide. 

North, Alas (fweet WJFe)myJ9[oaor is at pawne, 
And^utmy going, nothing can redceme it... 

La. Oh yet,for hcauens fake.go nor to rhefe Warrs ; 
The Xifflc was (Father) when you broke your word. 
When you were more cndeer'd to it,thennow, ■ 
\V lien y our ownc Percy. when my heart-deere-iy^ryj'; 
Threw many a Northward looke,to fee hi&Fathet 
Bring vp his Powrcs : buchedidlong in vainc^ 
Who then perfwaded you to (ky at home? 
There were tWo Honors loft; Yours, and yourSonncJW 
For Yo!>r^ may lieauenly glory brighteh it : 
FofHis.icftuekevponhim.as theSonnc 
In the gray vc;ultt>f hicauen :and by his Light 
Did all the Cheualrie of England nioue . 
•To do biauc Afls. He was (indced)thc Glaffe 
WherciniheNoble-Youih did dreffe themfc'iUes. 
He had no Leggcs, rhat pradHc'd not his Gate ; 
'And fpeaking thicks Cwhich Nature madehis blemifli) 
Became the Accents of the Valianf. 
For thote.that c<juld fpeake low,and tardily, 
Would turne their ownePerfe<3ion,toAbufe, 
To feenic like him. So that in Specch,in Gate, 
In Dictjin Affedions of delight, 
In Militarie Rules- Humors of Blood, 



ig;- I)/ 



He 



82 The fccondfPan ofKJng Henry the FounL 



He was the Marke,and GlafiV-, Coppyiand Booke. 
■That faOiion'd othcfi^ And him, 6 wondrousi him^ 
O Miracle of McnLHimdidyoulcaue 
(Second wnonc) vti.fc,cofidrd by you. 
To lookc Ypon the hideous God of VVarre, 
In dif.aduaotagc,to abide a field. 
Where nothing but the found oi Hot if an Name 
Did feeinc deffinfiblc : fo you left him. 
Neuet.Ontuet doe hisGhoft ihe wrong, 
Tohold youi Honor nAorc precifeand nice 
With othcrSjthcn with him. Let iheni alone : 
The Marfhall and the Arch-bifhop arc ftrong. 
Had my ^^wect Harry had but halfe their Number*, 
To day might I (hanging on Hot^tirs Nccke) 
Haue talk'd of tSiloamomh s Grauc. 

IQorth. Beflircwyouthcarr, 
(Faire Daughter) yon doe draw my Spirits from me, 
With new lamentirtg ancient Oucr.fights, 
But I muft f;oe,an d meet with Danger there. 
Or it will fceke me in another piscc, 
And finde me worfc prouidcd. 

tVife. Ofiye to Scotland, 
Till that the Noblcs.and the armed Commons, 
Haue of then Puiffancc made a little tafte. 

Lady. Ifthey get ground.and vantage of the Ki;ig, 
Then ioyne yoB with them, like a Ribbe of Steele, 
To make Strength ftrongcr. bur.for alfour loucs, 
Firfl let them trye tnemfelues. So did your Sonne, 
He was fo fuffer'd 5 fo came I a Widow : 
Andneuet {hall haut length of Life enough. 
To raine vpon Remembrance with mine Eyes, 
That it may grow^and fprowc.as high as Hcauen, 
For Recordation to my Noble Husband. 

iVowfe.Comc,comc,go in with mc'.'tis with my Minde 
A« with thcTydc.fwell'dvp vnto his height. 
That makes a Ilill-ftand,running neythcr way . 
Faine would I ffoeto meet the A.rch-bifi»op. 
But many thoufand Reafons hold me backe. 
I will refoluc for Scotland: there am I, 
Till Time and Vantage crauc my company 



\ i.DfMV. IlefecifIcanfiudeout5*»*«;^, 
^ Stiter Utfitjfe, and Dol, 



Exit. 



-I 



Excum. 



Scisna Ouarta, 



Enter two Dmvers. 

t.Bfaiw- What haft thou brought there? Apple, 
lohns ? ThoH know ft Sir lofni cannot «sdure an Apple- 

lohii . 

3. Draw. Thou fay'ft true J the Prince once feta Dtfh 
of Applc.Tohns before him, and told him theie wcrefiue 
I mote Sk Jo!i>jt: and,puitingoff his Hat,laid,I will now 
I take my leauc of thefe fncc drie, round, old-wishcrd 
I Knights. It anger'd him to the heart : but hee hath for- 
got that. 

I. Draw, Why then couevi and fet them do wne : and 
Ces if thoncauft finde out Sneakes Noyfe ; Miftris Teare- 
y^«r would faine hauc fome Mufique, 

i.Drarr, Sitrh3,heere will be the Prince, and Maftcr 
J>w'«w,9non ; and they will p«t on two of our lerkins, 
and Aprons, nnd Sir /o6«mufi not know of it : ^ardolph 
ha:h brought word, 

i.nratp. Then here will be oidFffer,* it will bean CK- 
celknt (tratagem. 



4;iU -(,!)) -11/i 



i^efi. Swcer-heart, me thinkes now you are in an ex* 
ccUcntgoodtempcralitie: yourPulfidge beates;as ttJ. 
traordinan1y,as heart would dr(ire ; and your Colout 
(I warrant you ) is as ted as anyRofe : But you hfiui> 
dmnke too much Canaries, and that's a tnaruellous feat'' 
thing Wine ; and i* perfumes the blood, ere wee can fay 
what's this. How doe you now !• 

Do/. Better then I was : Hem. 

Hefi- Why that was well faid : A good heart s wortfar 
Gold. Looke;ihere comes Sir Inhn. 

EntirFalfiaffe. 

° Ealff. ffhttf Arthnrfirli s» Court. "{cm^txt the loidan) 
Mtivoi AvarthjKing: HownowMiftrisDo/? 

Ho^. SickofaCalme:yea_good.foot!i. 

Faltl. So is all her Scdl : if they be onceinaCalnt*, 
they are fick. 

Dol. You rauddie Rafcailjis that all the comfort ;^c!» 
giueme? 

Falli. You make fat Rafcalls^Miftrls "Dof': 

Bol, I make them ? Gluttonic and Difeafes make 
them.I make them no^ 

Falfl. 1* the Cooke make the GIuttonie,youhelp<: to 
make the Difcafcs (2>ff/) we catch of you (Z)»/j we catch 
of you : Grant that.my poore Vertue, grant rhat. 

tDtf/. Imarry,ouiChaynes,and6urIewels^ 

Falfi. Your Brooches, S^earles, and O wches j For 16 
leruc braucly,is to come hakiig off: you know,to come 
off the Brcach,with his Pike bent brauely, and to Surge- 
rie brauely ; to venture vpon rhc charg'd-Chambeu 
brauely. 

Hojf-, 'Why this is the olde fatliion : you two neuer 
meete,butyou fall to fomcdifcord: you are both (JQ 
good troth) as Rhcumatifec as two drie ToHcs, you can. 
not one bcare with anothers Confirmities. What the 
good-ycre? One mufl bearc, and that muft bee you: 
you are the weaker Velfcll ; ai they (ay, the emptier 
Veffell. 

Dui. Canaweake emptic VcHell beare fucb a huge 
full Hogs-hcad ? There's a whole Marchants Venture 
of Buideuv-Stuffeinhim: you haue not fccneaHul!ce 
bettci ftufft in the Hold- Come, He be friends with tbee 
lach^ : Thou art going to the Warres , and whether I 
Hiali cuer fet. thee againe^or no, there is no body 
cares. 

inter 'JDravftr. 

Drawer. Sir, Ancient /*;;?<)/? is below, and would 
fpeake with you, 

©«/. Hang him, fwag^ering Rafcall , let him rot 
come hither : it is the fouie-inouth'dli Rogue in £ng« 
land. 

Hofi. If hee fwagger, let him not come here : I mttft 
liueamongit my Neighbors, He no Swaggerers; I am 
in good nai je, and fame, with the very befi : fhui the 
doorc, there comes no Swaggerers heere : I hauc not 
hud all this while, to haue fwaggcring nowr (but th« 
doore, Iprayyou, 

>«/i?. Do fl thou hcare.rioftcCc ? 
, Hefi.'PtzY you pacifie your fcUc(Sir M»)ihcrc romes 
no Swaggerers heere, 

^ 425 - (13j - in ' 



I'hefecondT^tofE^mgHenrjthe Fourib. 



Falfl- Do'ft thou heare? ic is mine Ancient, 

HoB. Tilly-faIIy(Sir fohn)ncusT cell mc, your ancient 
Swaggerer comes no cin my doores, I was before M afict 
TV/'fl.the Deputic, the other day : and as hee faid cotnt, 
it was no longer agoe then Wcdne{3ay laft : Neighbour 
§aicklji (faycs hce;7M:ifier Dom5e,oax Miniftcr.was by 
then : Neighbopr ^Imckly (fayes hee^ rcceiue thofe thsc 
areCiuili j for (fay to hec) you ore in an illNauie : now 
hrc faid fo J can tell whereupon : ror(rayes bee) you arc 
t" honefl Wot!;an, and Wei! thought on ; ilisreforetake 
hcede what GueCIs you receiue: Rcceiue (fay es hce^no 
waggeringCompar/ions.Thcrc comes noneheere* You 
would bieife you to heatc what hee faid, No, ilc ho 
Swaggerers, "" ' 

Falfi. Hec's no Swaggerer(Ho{tefle;)a tsme Cheater, 
iiec: you may fircai;; Liiu ai gently^as a puppie Grey- 
hound :. hee will not I'waggcrv.'tthaBarbaTie Hennc,'if 
her feathers turne baekc in any /hew of refinance. Call 
bimvp (Drawer.} 

tJofi, Cheater, call you hlcn ? I VJil! barre no honeft 
snab my houfe,,noi no Cheater : cut I doe not I'oue fwag- 
gering; lamihe worfev%'henonefaycs,f'^ag^cr : Fccle 
Msflcrs.how I (Iiakc: looke-youjl warrant you. 

Dol. Soyoudoe,Hofiefle. 
■ HafirDoel} ye3,invcrytratIidoeIjificwerean A - 
penLeafe : I cannot abide Swaggefets. 

Surer Pi/ts!.^ and "BaTcLol^h a/sd his, Boy, 

fifi. 'SaueyoUjSir/^S»i 

Falfi. Welcome hncKiKpiftd. Hcre{P/7?fi/^l'charge 
you witha Cup of Sackei riac you difchargc vpon mine 
Hoffefie. 

F;^. 1 will difchargcvpon Tier (Sir/*«») withiwo 
Bullets. ~~ 

Fatfi. She is PiaoIUptoofc(Sir^ you {hall hardly nf. 
fend her. 

Hofl Come. Iledrinkc no Proofes,norno Bullets: 1 
will dtinke no more then will doc me eood, for no mans 
plealute, I. 

Pi[}-. Then to you {}l[.\{in%Dorothie') Iwill charge 
you, 

"Del. Ch.irgeme? I rcorhcyxiu(fcuruie Companion} 
what?you poore; bafe,r3fcal!y, clieating, lacke-Linnen- 
Mate: away you mouldicRogtiF^awayj i am meat for 
yourMaftcr. 

Pifi. I knowyou,MiilrisZ)»;«^/#. 

T)oL Away you Cur-purfe Rafcall, yon filthy Bung, 
away : By this Wiuejllc thtuftmyKnife m yourmouldie 
Chappesjif you play t^.e fawcie Cuttle withmc. Away 
youBotdc-AlcRafcail.you Basket-hilt flalelugler.you. 
Since when, I pray yoUjSir? whati with two Points on 
yourfhoulder ? much, 

?ifi. 1 will murthcr your Ruffe,fo"r this, 

Hofi. Nojgood Captaine Piftoi -•■■ not hcere . fwcetc 
Captainc. """ 

Dol. Captaine ?. thou abhominabk damn'd Cheater^ 
arttlicunotalliam'd cobecall'd Captainc? If Captaines 
wercof my minde, they would trunchion you out.for ta- 
king their Names vpon you,beforeyouhaueearn'd them. 
You a Captainc? you flauejfor what .' forrcating a poore 
Whores Ruffe in a B.iwdy.flbufe ? Hee a Captanie? hang 
hsmRoguCj hee liiiesvportmouldie ftcW'd-Pruinesjand 
dry'de Cakes. A Captaine.? Thefe Villaines will mafec 
the word Captaine odious : Therefore Cjptaiaes hao 
needelooketoir. 



Bard. 'Pray thee goc downe,good Ancieoi:. 
Fdfi, Hcarke thee hither,Miftris BoL 

PiFl. Not I : I tell thee wnat. CorpotaIIS^;^?^i&^ I 
could tesre her : He be reueng'd on her. 

Pa^e. 'Pray ch ee go c d o wnc. 

Pifi. lie fee her damn'd firfl: to P/m«'j damn'd Lake, 
to the f nfernall Decpe, where Erebus and Tortures vilde 
alfo. Hold Hookc and Line, fay! ; Downe: downc 
Doggesjdowne Fates: haueweenot/iVfw here; 

Hofi. Good Captaine Peefd be quiet, it is very late.: 
I befeekcyou now,aggr3uateyourCholcr. 

Fiji. Thefe be good Humors indccde. ShaM Pack. 
Horfes,and hollow-pamper.d lades of Afiajwhich can- 
not goc but thiriie miles .i day, compare with Capir, and 
with Caniballsjand Tro:r.iGreekcs? r;jy, rather damne 
theoi with YimgCr5tr:ii,raA k; tlic Welkin roatfi: (hall 
Vvcc fall foule forToyes r ' 

Hofi. By my tfcth Captaine, ihefe are very bittci 
V'Ords. 

: "Biird, Be gone, good Ancient : ihis ■raill. grow to a 
Erawl3anon. 

Pifi^ Die menjiikeDoggesiguieCrowneslikcPinnes: 
Haue we not //«-fa here? 

Hofi. Ori my word(CaptaiDe)thercsnone fuch here. 
What the good-yere^doeyouthioke I wouJ i denyeher ? 
I pray be quiet. 

Fifl. Then fee<3,and be fac (my £i\Te (/tlipelii ,) Come, 
giue me fome Sack, SifartHHe me tcrmeme fpertttomecon- 
tense. Fcarc wee broad-fides fNo,lct the Fietidgiucfire: 
Giueme(bmeSack: and Sweet-heart lye chou there: 
Come wee to full Points here . and arc ct ccterds no- 
thing ? i^^— « 

pal. ?/i?fl/,lwoaIdbeqnlet. 

Pistt Sweet Knight,! kiffeihyl^a^s-wIjatJwcehaQe 
feene the fcuen Starrcs. 

Dol. Thrufl him downe fiaytes, I cannar. endure fu(rfa 
a FuflianRafcs!!. 

Pifi. Thrufi him downe Haytci? knowwe notGallo- 
w.^yNaggcs ^ 

Tal. Qil.'^it him downe {^Burdolfh) like alhoac-groat 
fiiilling: nav.if heedocnoihingbutfoeakenoibingjhce 
fhall be nothing here, 

"Sard. ComCjget you downe fiayrej. 

P/;?. What? fiialiwee hauelncifion? rhall wee cm- 
brew ? then Death rockc me afleepe,abridgeroydolefull 
dayes: why then let gricucus,g2ftly,gapj»g Wounds, 
vncwin'd the Sifters three: Come .^tropotj. fay, 

HoBl Hcre'sgoodftuffetoward. 

Fal. GiuerocmyRapier.Boy. 

JDfl/.,T pretiiee lack,, J pretlice doeoot draw. 

FaL GetyiSfdowncftayres, 

Hofi. Here's a goodly tumult: lie fotfweare keeping 
houfcjbeforcllebcinthefe tirrits,and frights. So^Mur- 
thci I warrant now. Alas. alaSj putvpyour naked Wca» 
pons, put vp yout naked Weapons. 

Dal. I prethce A?ir;^,be quiet, theRafcallis gone i . ^ 
you whorfon littlevalianc Vjllaine,you, 

Hoft. Are yoaaoc burr i th' Groyne ? me thought hee 
made alhrewdTbruft^tyour Belly. 

fd. Haueyou turn'd him out of doores i 

Bard. 'Yes Sir : the Rafcall sdrunke: ysu Tiaifc l»urt 
(Sir) inihefiiouldcr. 

Fal. A Rafcall to braue me* 

Deu Ah.youfweerlittJeRogaEiy.otr: alas.pooEcApCf. 
how thou Iwcat'ft? Com^krmcwipethyFacerCojDej 
onjyoa whorfon Chops-i Ah Rogae,Iloue thee : Thou 

'A 



154-(22)-10;i 



405 - (eij-CA 



Sa The fecond^art ofK^g Henry the Fourth, 



ars as valorous as HeSler of Troy,worth Sue of uigamem' 
Hon, and tcnnc times better then the nine Worthies : ah 
Villaine. "" 

F4I. Arafcslly Slaue,IwinioffetheR©gueijiaBlan- 
kcc. "" 

Do/. Doc,if thou tiar'ft for thy heart : if thou doo'ft, 
lie canuas thee betwccnc a pairc of ShecteT, 

Entir ij^titjtqsie, 

TAge, TheMufiqueis come.Sir, 

"Bd. Let them play : play Sir*. Sit on my Knee, P«/. 
h Rafcall.bragging Slaue: theTTogue fled frooi me like 
Quick-filucr, 

Z)«/. And thou followd'ft him like a Church: thou 
whotfon little tydic Sartholme'wBorc-pigge.vshen wile 
thou leauc fighting on daycs,aiid foyningon ni^|nt|,and 
begin to patch vp thine old Body for Hcauen ? 

"Enter the Prince a>id Pomes disguis'd, 

Td. Peace (good Dol) doe not fpcake like aPeaths- 
head : doc non bid me remember raine end. 

Dol, Sirrha, wTiat humor is the Prince of? 

Fal. A good fliallo w young fellow : hee would haue 
made a good Pander, hce would haue chipp'd Bread 
well. 

Dol. They, fay Foiues hath a good Wit. 

fd. Hee a good Wit f hang him Baboonchis Wit is 
asthicke as Tewksburie Milliard: there is no more con- 
ceit in him,thcn is in a Maliet. 

Dol. Why doth the Prince louehim forhen ? 

Td. Becaufe their Lcggcs are both ofa bignefle: and 
hee pbyes at Q^oirs well.and eates Conger and FgnneiT 
and drinkei off Candles ends for Flap.diagons,and rides 
the wildc-Marc with the Boycs,and iumpes vpon loyn'd- 
Hoo'es.and (weares with a good grace, and weares his 
Boot very fmooth ,like viuo the Signe of the Leggc; and 
breedes nobatewith telling of difcreeie ftories: and fuch 
other Gamboll Faculties hee hath, that fhew a weake 
MindcjaniTanflblcBodyjfor the which thcPrriice admit* 
him ; fot tfic Prince himfelfe is fuch another : the 
weight oF an hayre will turnc the Scales betweene their 
Hnbcr-de-fots . 

Vrinci. Wouldnotthis Naiieof aWheele haue his 
Eares cut otf? 

foin, L"c£ vsbcat him before his Whore. 

Vr'me. Lookc, if the withet'd Elder hath not his Poll 
claw'd like a Parrot . 

Poin. Is it not flrange, that Defirc fiiould io many 
yeetes oiit4iue performance ? 

fA. Kiffe me Dol. 

Tr'tKCs. Satcrne and Ve-^iM4 this yeere in Coniunc^ion ? 
VV'^hac fayes the Almanack to that? 

?«;«. And lookc whether the ficrie Trtgon^ his Man, 
benoilifping tohisMaders old Tables^hisNote-Booke, 
his CounccU-kccpct ? 

F^/. Thoud_c/ft grjemcflatt'ring Bufles. 

Dol. Nayiruely, I kiffe thee with a moft conftant 
heart. 

Fd.- 1 am aide, I am olue. 

Dol. I loue thee better .then T loue erea fcuruie young 
Boy of them alL 

Fd. What Stuffc wilt thou haue a Kirtle of ? I (hall 
receiueMoneyonThurfdjy ; thou (halt haueaCappe 
to morrow, A mcrne Song, come t ic gtovses laic, 



wee will to Bed. Thou wilt forget roc, whm \ aaj 

gone. "" 

Do/. Thou wilt fei me a weeping, if thou fty*^ {qj 
ptoue thai cuer I drcfic my felfc haadfome , lUl thy jc, 
turne : well,hearken the end. 

Id. Some Sack,Fir/ifff«f. 

"Prm.Peiu. Anon,3non3sr. 

'Fd. Ha? a Baftard Sonne ofthe King! ? And lit not 
thou Fo/wWjhis Brother ? ■ 

Frincf. Why thou Globe of finfull Continentr^what 
a Life do'ft thou lead if 

Fd. A better then thou; lamaCentlemanjthouan 
aDrav^er, 

Prince. Very true, Sit : and T com'e to draw you cut 
by the Earei. ~" 

Hoji. Oh, the Lord prcferuc thy good GracciWcI- 
come to London. Now Heauen bleflc^at fweete Face 
of thine: what,are you come from Wales? 

Fd, Thou whorfon mad Compound of Maieftie t by 
this light Flefli,and corrupt Blood,th'eu art welcome* 

Do[. How? you fat FotJe.l fcorne you. 

Pciij. My Lord, hee will d"!uc you out of your re- 
uengc,andturneal!toajr.crryERcni, if you take not tbft 
heat. 

Prince, You whorfon Candle*inyne you, howvildly 
didyoufpeakeof meeuen now, before this honeftjV.cr. 
tuousjciuill Gentlewoman? ~" 

" Holl. 'Blclfingon yourgood heart, and foCj£e is bf 
my troth. ^"" 

Fd. Dldftthouheareme? 

'Prtnce. YesrandyouknewmtjSsyou did whm yoft 
ranne away by Gads-hili : youknew I was atyour back. 
and IpoTccit on purpofe,to trie my patience. 

Fd. No,na,no;notfo! I did not thioke, thou waS 
within hcsyijsg. 

prince. I {hall driue you then to confcffc the wUrjU 
abufe, and then I know how tofcandle you, 

Fd. No abufe {Hdl) on raise Bonor,no abufe. 

PmcfTTvIot to difpray fc me? ^ call me Pantlcrtandi 
Bread-chopper, and I know notA\nat^ 

Fd. Noabufc(£/d/; 

Poin, No abufe? 

Fd, No abufe {NiS) in the World : honeft Nedaone. 
I difpraysd hiia before t^c W itked', tjy| the Wicked 
might not fall in loue with him: Inwhich doing, 1 haue 
done the part of a carcfuil Friend.and a true Subied,and 
thy Father is jj^giUfimethankes fork. No abufe (//<:/;) 
none (Ned) nonej i^Boyes,none, 

PriKce. Sec now whether pure FearCjand entire (j|g]Sr 
ardife, doth not make thee wrong this vcrtuous Gende* 
woman,to clofe with vs? Is (hee of the Wicked ? Is thine 
Hoftcire hecreTof the Wicked ? Or is the Boyof ili£ 
Wicked ? Or honeft Bardo/^h (whofe Zealc burncs JD his 
Nofc) of the Wicked ? 

Poi0. Anfwere thou dead Elme.anFwtrft 

Fd. The Fiend hath priclct downe "Bitrdolj/b irrecouo* 
rable,and his Face isLuctfers priuy-Kitchin, where hee 
doth notTing buL roft Mault-Wormes : for the Boy^ 
tliere isagood AnseUaboot him^but ths Deuillouc*^ 
bids him too, 

PrtKce. For tjjie Women? ^ 

Fd. Fcrone of them, (hee is in Hell alrcadie, anu 
burnes poore Soules : for the other, i owe hej; Mo- 
ney ; and whether flicc bee damn'tj for char, I k::pw 
not. 
Hcji. No,l warrant you. 

Fd. No. 



50 



100 



150 



443 -(a)- UA 



465 -(11) - 7A 



200 

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250 

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(1) 
300 

(1) 

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400 1/ 

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50 



The CecondTart of K^ig Henry the Fourth. 



8y 



100 

Vi 

n 
(1) 

150 



200 

(3) 
250 

(3) 



Ih 300 

lA 



tal. No,I chinke thou arc not: J thinkc thou^t quic 
(ortlibf. Marry, theie is another Indiflcncnc vpon thcf . 
ior Tuffering fleUi to bee eaten in thy houre. contraiy to 
the Law, lot the which I thinke thou w_ik howlc. 

tJaB. All Vifluallers'doe To : What is a loynt^ 
MuitoOjOr twojin a wholeLcnc ? 

Pftnce. YoUjGenclcwotnao. 

S)oU W ha t fayes yoorGraec? 

ivi^. His Grace fay es that , wbkli hisj^ rcbcHs 

Hoft. "Who knocks fo lowd at doorc? Lookeipthe 
dooie there,f?rf»f*r 2 

Eater Tett. 

Priitet. Ptf/»,how now? what ncwei? 
Peta. The King,your F3thcr,is at Weftjninfter, 
And there arc t wentie weakc and wearied PofteS) 
Come from thcNorth»and jj I came along, 
lniet,and ouer-tookc a dozen Captaincs, 
ii2r«*hcaded,fwcatiDg,knocking at the 1 aufrnes, 
^ad asking euery ogf for Sir lohtt Falfidffe, 

Wrmce. By Hcauen (Pames)l feck me much to blame, 
foidlytoprophane the precious time, 
t7hea TempcliofCommotion,Iike the South, 
fsarne with black Vapour, doth begin to melt, 
^inS drop vpon our bare vnarmed heads. 
GincmemySword,andClo3Ke: 
f##.good night. Exit. 

XaUI. Now comes in the fwectcft Morfell of the 
cl^ht, and wee muft hence, and leaue icvnpickt. More 
isaocVing ajthe doorc? How now ?. what's the mat- 
ter? 

^ard. You muft away to Court.Sir.prcfently, 
&. dozen Captaincs {lay at ^ftUfi fot you. 

Filjt. Psythe Kiufitians.Sirrha: farewell Hoftefle, 
frrewell Pol . You fee (my good Wenches) how nicn of 
Merit aTs fought after : ^ vndefcrucr .mayilcepejWhen 
the man of Aftion is call'd on. Farewell good Wenches: 
iflbenotfcnc away pcfle, IwiU fee youagaiue,ercI 
goe. 

Do[. ^cannot fpeake -. if my heart bee not readie 
to burft — Well (fvjccte lacks) haue a care of thy 
felfe!"" 

Fulji: Farewell, farewell. Exit, 

Hoft. \ yell. fare thee well : I haue knowne thee 
thefe twentse nine. veeres. come Pcfcod-timc : but an 
honefter » and truer-hearted man-— Well . fare thee 
well, 

Bard." Miftiis Teare-fl?esT, 
Hofi. What's the matter? 
Bard. Bid Miftris Teare-fhset COiT.cto my Maftcr. 
Hofi. OhrunricZ>3/,runnc: iaaafi,good2?o/, 

Exefsnt. 



JcIhs T'crtius. Scena Trim a. 



Ih 350 



Efirer the Kivg,with a "Page. 

Kt'ij^.Goe.call the Earlesof Surrey ,and q£Warwick ; 
but ere they come, bid them ore-reade thcle T-ptrpr<; 
andwelt confider of thcra : make good fpeed. Exit. 



How many thoulandof my poorcft SljbieSs 

r\re atiiyshoWreafleepc? OSleepe.O gentle Stcepe, 

Natures loft £imje, how haue 1 frighted thee, 

That thou no morp;^iif weigh my eye-lids downc, 

AndfierpemySences in F^^roptfnlnFffp ? 

Why rather (Sleepe) lyeftthou in fmoakie Cribs, 

Vpon vneafieiiaiiads (^retching thee. 

And huifht with buffing Night, flyesteihyflumberj 

Then in ihe perfum'd Chainbers of the Great ? 

Vnde r the Canopies of cofily Si_ce, 

And lull'd with founds af fwtcteft Melodic ? 

O thou dull God,why lyeft thou 5Sdih the vilde. 

In loathfome Bcds,and leau'li the Kingly Coufibj, 

A Watch.cafc,or a common Larum-Bell ? 

Wilt thou,vponi)ip high and giddie Maft, 

Scale vp the Ship-boyes Eyes jiid rock his Braines, 

In Cradle of the rude imperious Sur g e. 

And in thcvifitationof the Wmdes, 

Who take illfi Ruffian Billowcs by the top, 

Curling their monftroushcads,aaLd hanging them 

With deaff'ning Clamors in the flipp'ry Cloudsj 

Thnr with the hurlcy^Dcath it felfe awakes i 

Canft thou (O parciiU Sleepe) g"'f thy Rcpofe- 

To the wet Sea-Boy, in an hourejiirude: ' 

And in the caimeff.and moff ililleli Night, 

With ail appliances, and meanes to boote. 

Deny it to^King ? Then hspry Lov/e,lyc down?, 

Vneafie lyes the tkad^thac weares a Crownc. 

Enter Warwiche and Surrey. 

ff^ar. Many good-morrowes to your Maicfiie. 

King. Is it good-morrow, Lordt? 

pyar. ' Tii One a Clock, and paft, 

A'j^ff. Why then good-morrow toyouaII(my Lordsr) 
Haue you read o're ihs Letters that I fent you f' 

fVdr. We haue (my Liege.) 

Kiiig. Then you pT/-Fi»p the Body of our Kingdome, 
How foule it is : \viu£ ranke Difeafes grow. 
And with what danger,nccrc the Ueau of it ? 

war. It is but as a Body,yct ijj.ftrmprr'd. 
Which to his former flrength may be reOord. 
With gnnd adnice.and little Medicine : 
My Lord NorchttmherUndvnW foonc hacool'd. 

Ki»g.O\\ Heauen.chat one might read the Book a£Fate, 
And fee the rcuolution of the Times 
Make t y^fMinrnlnp'; jcuelland the Continent 
( Wcjric of folide firmencfre)mclt it felfe 
into the <<•? • and other Times, to fee 
The bcachic G irdle of tJbaOcean 
Too wide for Ne^tunes hippes ; how Chances mocks 
4aiChangcs fill the Cuppe of Alteration 
With diners Liquors. 'iknot tcnnc yeeresgor.ff. 
Since Richard,3ad Northumberktid, great frifn<3 <. 
Did fcali together ; and in two yeeres after, 
Were flipy at Warres. It is but eight yeere* fince, 
This rirrnr: vvas the m3n,ncercfl my Soulc, 
Who,like a guibci, loyl'd in roy Affaires, 
And liyd his Louc and Ij£e vndci my foot : 
Yc3,for my fake,euen to tUaeycs of 'S^chari 
Gauc him defiance. But which of yAU was by 
(You Coufin Neutljii I may remember) 
When Rich(ird,<K'nh his Eye,brim-full of TeUfiSj 
(Then check'd,and rated by ATorffeww^f'^/W) _ 
Did fpeake thcfc word? (now prou'daProphccic:) 
Northum^trland^xhoii Laddcr,by the which 



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(1) 
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(3) 
III 

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(2 

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(4 



35 



40 



1, 
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358 -(6)- 7/< 



450 -(29)- 0/^ 



8<5 ThefecondTartofEJmHonry the Fourth. 



My Cbufin TiHllingbrooke afcends my Throne : 
(Though Hicn.Heaiien kiiowcs,! had no fuch intent. 
But ihatnecefTitie fobow'd the State, 
That I and Grcsrncflc were compell'd to Iciflc:) 
The Time (hail come (thus did bee follow it) 
TheTitnc will come that foulc Sini>c gathering head. 
Shall brealie into Corruption : fo went on. 
Fore-telling this fame T imes Conditionj 
And the diuifion of oiir Amitic. 

l^'ar. There is'a Hiftoric in all tnens Liues, 
Figuring the nature of the Times deceas'd: 
The which obferu d, a man may prophccie 
With a nccre avmc,of the mainc chance of things, 
As yet not come to Lifc,which in their Seedcs 
And wcakc beginnings lye entreafurea : 
Sucli things become the Hatch and Brood of Time j 
And by the neccTTarie forme of this, 
King X/c^'jr^rnight creates perfect guefle, 
That great Nonhifmbertafid^ then falfc to hitrij 
Would of that Sced,grovv to a greater falfcnefTej 
Which (hould not findc a ground to roote vpon, 
Vnleffe on you. 

King. Are thefe things then NccefTitics? 
, Then let vs mccte them like Necefficics ; 
And thai fame word,cuen nowcryesout onvs: 
They fay ,the Bifliop and Northumberland 
Are fifiic thoufand ftrong. 

I'Var. It cannot be (my Lord;) 
Rumor doth doub!e,like the Voicc.and Eccho, 
The numbers of the feared. Plcafe it your Grace 
To goe to ted, vpon my Life (my Lord) 
The Pow'is that you alrcadie haue fenc forth, 
Shall bring this Prize in very cafily. 
To comfort you the morej hauc recciu'n 
k cettalne inftancCjthat CUndour is dead. 
Vour Maieflic hath beene this fort-night ill, 
And thefe vnfeafon'd howtcs perforce muft addc , 
Vnto yout SickncfTe. 

Kin^- 1 will tike your counfailc : 
And were thefe inward Warres once out of hand , 
Wee would (dcare LordsJ vnto the Holy-Land, 

ExcHnt. 

i(;o-(o5 )- a/i 



Snier Shallorv and Silence : with AfoHldie, Shadow, 
IVart^ Feeble, 'Buil-calfe. 

Shal. Come-on,come-on .come-on : giue mce your 
HandjSir ; giuemec your Hand-, Sit : an early fiirrcr^by 
the Rood. And how doth my good Coiifin Silence ! 

SiL Good-morrowjgood Coufin Shiijlow. 

Shal. And how doth my Coufin, youTE:d-fc!!ow ? 
and you r faireft Daughter, and mine, my God-D'aughier 
Ellers? 

SiL Alaska blackeOuzell (Coufin J'iW/oii'.) 

Shal. By yea and nay, Sir, I dare fay my Coufin William 
is become a good Scholler? lice is atOxfoidfiill,ishce 
not? 

SiL IndeedcSifjtomycoft, 

Shal. Hce muft then to the Innes of Court fiiortly : I 
was once of Clements Inne ; where (l ihinkc) thc^ will 
lalkc of mad Hhatlerv yet. 




SiL Ycu were call'd luftic ShaOoxv thcn(Coufin.) 

Shal. 1 was call'd any thing : and 1 woul J haue done 
any thing indcedc too.and roundly too. There was I,and 
little loha Doit of Staftordfhirc, and blackc Gcorgc'Bare 
and francis T ick^hoKC, HinA iViU Scfuele a Cot-fal-man, you 
hadnotfoure fuch Swmdgc-bucklers in all the Innes of 
Court agaiiic : And T may fay to you, wee knew where 
the "Bona-K^ba's were, and had the bell of them all at 
commandcment. Then wzilacke ¥nlJiajfe(no\v S'ltldni] 
alJoy , and Page to Thomat i.Motvbray^ Duke of Nar. 
folke. 

Sil. This Sir loh^ (Coufinj that comes hither anon a« 
bout Souldlcri ? 

Shal. The fame Sir lohn, the very fame : I faw him 
breake Scoggans Head at the Court-Gate, when hee wai 
aCrackjnot thus high: and the very fame day did I fight 
with one J'4?«p/ci»5;oc;^-/i/77, a Fruiterer, behinde Greyes. 
Inne. Oh the mad dayes that I haue fpent ! and to fee 
how many of mine okie Acquaintance are dead ? 

Sil. Wee fiiall all follow (Coufirt.) 

Sha!. Certaine: 'tis certaine: very furc, very furc: 
Death is certaine to all, all fiiall dye. How a good Yokt 
of Sullocki at Stamford Fayre ? 

Stl. 1 ruly Coufin,! was not there. 

Shal. Death is certaine. lsold£tf«^/irof yourTowne 
lilting yet ? ^"" 

StL DeadjSir. 

Shal. Dead i Sec, fee : hee drew a good Bow : and 
dead? hee flioc a fine fhoote. /#/;;; of Gaunt loued 
him well, and betted much Money on his head. Dead? 
hee would hauc clapt inthcClowiatTwelue-fcorc,and 
carryrd you a fore-hand Shaft at fouretcene, r.nd foure- 
teencandahalfcjihat it would halSedonc a mans heart 
good to fee. How a fcorc of Ewes now ? 

Ssl. Thereafter as they be : a (core of good Ewes 
may be worth tcnne poundsi 

ShiiL And is olde Dcuble dead ?-J94- (6 )- 10 /v 

Zmer''BiirdoIph and hts Bej^ 

Sil. Heere come two of Sir lohn Talfiaffes Men (as I 
thinke.) 

Shal. Good-morrow,honeit Gentlemen. 

Tard. I bereechyou,which is I'uflice Sh.-illotr ? 

Shal. 1 am ^e^frfi/,'.j//oK'(SiF)apooreEfquircofihis 
Countic, and cne of the Kings lufticcs of the Peace: 
What is yout good plcafure with me ? 

Ba>d, My Captainc (Sir) commends him to you : 
tny Captaine^SU-^?;!* Faljlajfe : i tall Gentleman, and a 
iiioR gallant Leader. 

Shal. Hce grcetes me well . ( Sir) I knew him a 
good Back-S word-man. How doth the good Knight? 
may I aske.how my Lady his Wife doth ? 

Bard. Sir.pardon : aSouldicris better acconimoda- 
tcd.then with a VVif?. 

ShaL iVTswellfaid Sir; and it is well faid, indecdc, 
coo: Better accommodated? it is good, yea indeede is 
it : good pUrafes arc furcly.and cu-ry where very com- 
tncndablc. Accommodated , it comes oX jiccommedo ; 
very good, a good Phtafc. h 

•B.ird. Pardon, Sir, 1 haue heard tne word. Phrafe' 
call yon it ? by this Day, I know not the Plirafc : hut 
I will maintains the Word with my Sword, to bee a 
Souldict-iike Woro , and a Word of exceeding good 
Command. Accommodated : that is' when a man is 
(as thev fay) accommodated : or, when a man is, being 
■^ ^^ whereby 



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ThefecoiidTart ofE^gMenry the Fmnh, 



87 



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30 



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wlicrcby he tliought to be accommodaceJ , Avhich .is an 
excellciuihing. 

5^^/. icisvcrv iuft : Loo!<c, liccrecomergood Sir 
foii*. Giucmcycnr hand, giucmcyoULWroiiliipsgood 
hand :Truft nicyou looke well : ami beare your ycatcs 
Very well. Wtlcome.good Sit /i7/i»„ 

Frf/. 1 aii> gl^d CO fee you well, good M . Ra^en Hhal- 
&8':Mafter5'»w?Earal3s I thinkc ? 

Sh*l. No ilrJol», it is my Cofin Siknce : in Commifli- 
011 with nice. , 

Tal. Good M. Sitcncc^ 5c well befits you (liould be of 
the peace. 

^//. Your good Wotfhip. is. welcome. 

fal^yx-, this is hoc weather (Gentlemen) baueyou 
p:ouided me h^crc halfe adozcn of fufficicnt ujen?. 

SM. Nfarryhaue weliriWillyo^ific? 

Fal, Letrocfeethent,lbcfcechyoa. 

Shil. Where's theRolljWheres the Roll? Where's 
thcRoU? Ltimeiec, Iccmc fee, let me fee : fojfo.fo.fo : 
yea miny^K, Rafht Mouhiif :\ct them appears as I call: 
l;ttb?n»dofc», lecthemdofo: Lecince fee. Where is 

/idoHl. Heerc.ificpleafe you. 

^hal. Whatthinke you (Sit /»/;«) a good limb 'd fel- 
low: yong.ftrong, and of good friends, 

laL Is thy name Mo»!di£ ? 

fjltwl. Yca.ifitpleafeyou. 

TaI. .Tis the rhorc time thou were vs'd. 

Sh^U Ha.ha.ha, mofl cxcclIent.Things that arc tBOul- 
diejlacke-vfeivery lingular good. WcllfaidcSit lohu^ 
very well faid. 

F</. Ptickeblm. 

Meul. 1 was priclct well enough before, ifyou could 
hauc let mo alone: my old D amc will be vndonc now,for 
one to doe her Husbandry, and her Drudgery ; you need 
nottohaucpricl4tme,thereareothermen fitter to goe 
out.thenl. 

f «/i . Go too: peace T^loa/die, y ou fhall goe, UHonldiCi 
it iitimeyouwcrcfpent. 

TilouL Spent? 

5W/flw._Peacc,felIovVjpeace; (land afide : Know you 
where you arc? For the other fit /ohtt : Let a\c icetSimoit 

'Id. I marry, let me baus him to lit viider : hs's like to 
beacoldfouUiier. 

Shd. VJhexesShadcnv} 

Sb/id. Heere iir. 

Tul. Shadow, vvhofc fonnc arc thou i 

Shad. My Mothers fonne. Sir. 

FaIJI. Thy Mothers fonnc : like enough, anJ thy fa- 
thers ftiadovv : fo the lonne of the Female , is the fhadow 
ofthe Male ; it is often fo inticede, but noi of the Fathers 
fubftancc. 

Shsl. Do you like him,fir /(?/;/»? 

Talfi, Shadow wilt letue for Summer : pnclteliim : For 
Weehaue annmbcr of fhadowcs to fill vppc the Muftei- 
Booke. 

Sh»l, Tfsomizstyart? 

f»lfi. .Where's he '. 

W'(jr{,_Hcctcfir. 

fnlfi, l^^y name fyc-n ? 

ff4rf.'.YeTfir. 

>£»/. Thou art a very ragged Wart. 

L * ii Ji Wiii ■ ■ 



^^tf/.Shalllptickehim downe, 
Sir7*A«i^ 

Falfit It were fupcrfluous: for his apparrel is built vp- 
on his backe, and the whole frame ftands vpon pinsjprick 
him no more. 

5/m/. Hajha.iia.youcan doitfir: youcaadocit ; I 
commcndyouwcll, 
Francis Feeble, 

Veehle. Hcercfir, 

Shd. WhaiTradeartthou r«^/e? 

lechle. "JTWomans Taylor fir, 

Sloal. Shall Iprickehim,fir J 

FaL You may : 
But if hchad beenea mans Tav^otjhe wouldhaueptickd 
you. Wilt thou make as many holes in aiv enemies Bat- 
taile,as thou haft done in a Womans petcicoce ? 

FeebU, .1 willdocmy goodwill fir, youcan haueiio 
morc„ 

Falfi. Well faid,good Womans Tailour: WellCyde 
Couragious Feeble : thou wilt bee as valiant as the wrafh- 
fuU Doue,or moft magnanimous Moufe. Pricke the -.'<q- 
mans Tsylour well Matter ShciUow, dccpe Maiftct Shd' 

Feeble, J would ff^rr might haue gone fir. 

FaU Iwoaldthouwertamans Tailor,tbaty migat'd 
mend him, and malTc him fie to goe. 1 cannot put hira to 
apritiate fouldieri that is the. Leaderof fomany thou- 
fands. Let chat fuffice,moft Forcible /F«^/ff 

Table. It {iiall fuffice. . 

Ffilfi. lam bound to ihce, rciierciid f^if^/ir. Who is 
the next ? 
'^'Shal. Peter Bnlcdfe ofthe Greene. 

Falfi. Yea marry, let vs fee 'Bftlcalfe. 

BtiL Heere fir 

Fal, Truft me,a likelyFellow. Comc,pt)ckc,iBe 2?»/- 
calfe till he roarc againe. 

'But. Oh.good my Lord Captaine. 

Fil. What? do H thou roare before th art prickr, 

BkL Oh fir,I am adifeafedmafj. 

Fal. What difeafc haft thou ? 

Bui. A whoi-foii cold fii-^a cough fir, which I caJght 
with Ringing in the Kings affayres, vpon his Coronation 
day/ir. 

Fat. Come,thoufhaltgototheWarrcsinaGowne: 
wewiirhaueawoythy Cold, and I will take fuch order, 
that thy friends fliall ring for thee. Isheertall? 

Shal. There I2 two more called then youi numbers 
you miift haue but foure heere fir,and foT pray you go in 
with me to dinner. 

Fal. Come, Twill goe drinke with you, but I cannot 
tarry dinner. I am glad to fee you in good troth, Maftei' 

Shalkvi: •, „ 

Skil. O fir lohij, doe you remember fince wet lay all 
ni^htinthe Winde.mill.in S Georges Field. 

"taifiafe. No more ol that good Maficr5*4^ei!'<,- No 
more of that. 

Shal. Haf it was a merry night. And :* lave Kight- 
I . woi-i-ifaliue ? 

Fal. She lilies, M.S^J.'V- 

Shal. She netier could away with me» 

fal. Ncuer,ncucr:flie would alwayei fay (hec could 
not abide M.5W/o». 

Shal. I could anger her to the heart : iheewasinea 3 
Bona-Ro&s. Doth fhe hold hcrowne v»ell. 

fW/. Old.old, M. ^W/ow. 

Shah Nay,flic muftbe old, (be cannot thoofciiucic 



l.jl 



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HyeficondTiirt cfKjpg Henry the Foi^th. 



old ! ccfiaine fti«e°s qld : aod had Robin Nt^ltt-vc'iirkc , by 
old Niiht.wi>rke,^^(orc I csmc to Clement! nne. 

Sil. Tltai's fifcre fTue yceres a goe. 

S/W. Hah, Coufin5»/<?»«, that ihouha^fl fccne that, 
that this Knighc and I hauefeenc: hah,Sir/i7/&n,faid I 

wdL? 

" Frt/y?, Wee hauc beard the Chymes at ra\d.night,Ma- 

Shd. Tharwee haoe.that wee haue ; in riittt,Sir lehn, 
wee hauc : our watch-wort! was, Hem-Boyes. Come, 
l«'j to Dinner ; come,lct's to Dinner : Oh the day e» iha^ 
wee haue fcenc. Conic,corae. 

Ed. Good M after Corporate "Bardolfh^ fland my 
fiitnd, and he«e is foure Hanj tcnnc fliibings in French 
Grownes im you : in very trtuh,fH,l had as lief bchang'd 
fir,as goe : -and yccfor mine owne patt.fir,! do not care ; 
but rather, becaufe 1 am vn willing, and for mine owne 
partjhauea^dcfirc to flay with nsjf&iendti sifc^lor. 1 did 
liot carc/or mine owne part,fo nnich» 
f^d. Go-coo: ftandafide. 

Mould. And j^oodMaflcrCorporallCflptaine.foriny 
dldDsmes fake, Hand my friend • iiliee hath no body to 
doe any thing abouthcr,vihenI amgone : and (lie is oldi 
and cannot helpc her fclfc : you (hali haue fortio^fif. 
' ■2*r</. Go.too:ftandafidc. 

feeble. I care not, a man can die but once : wcc owe a 
death. I will neuer bcarc a bafe miode : if it be my defti- 
we,fo;if itbenot.fo: nomanistoogood to fetuehis 
Prince : and let it goe which way it wtlljhc thaLdicithu 
yecrc,i5 quit for the next. 
' Bard. \Ve!!laid,iliou art a good fellow. 
f^eeble. Nay.I will beare no bale mmde. 
Faift. Come fir,whichmcn fliall I hauc ^ 
Sml. Foure of which you plcafe. 
, Bxrd. Sir, a word with you : "1 hauc three pound. to 
free LMoaldie and Bitll-calfe. ' 
pAtfi. Go-too: welh 

Shd. CoQie,rir M«,wliich foure will you haue ? 
l-Affi. Doc you chufe forme. 
Shal, Marry then , tMonidie, BulLcalfe^ Feeble, and 
Sbadaiv. 

FalJ!. Mafi!die,in(^ 'BHU^nlfr: for you Adanldit^Aiy 
athome,tilIyoaarepalUeruicc: and for your pait,^////- 
ri»5^,grow f.ll you coaic vnto it : 1 will noncof you. 

Shal. Sir /ofc«,Sir Uhit^doi not your felfe wrong,thcy 
arc your likelvcftiinCDjand I would hauc you feru'd with 
tfccbcfl. 

J^alfi. 'Willyaatcntnc(Maflcr5Ws>t')howtochufe 
aman? Care 1 torTheL)mbe,tiieTiKwef, ihe ftature, 
bnike^ and bij^f'.c aficmblanc e of a nun ? giue mec the 
fpirit (MaSet.?WW.) Where's ff^an? you fee what 
B fagged appearance it is : bee fhall charge you, and 
difcharge you, with the motion cf ;i Pewterers Ham. 
mcr f come off. andjon, fwificr then hee that gibbets on 
SieErcwcriBuckec, And this fame halfe-fac'd fellow, 
Shmm; gine me this man : hee prcfcnts no niarke to the 
EiJCiBie, the foR.man may with as great ayroc leuell at 
Ihie edge of a ?en-kmfe j and for a Rctraitj how fwiftly 
Kill this fftf/f, the WomansTaytor/runnc cff. O, glue 
mc the fpare nren, and (pare me the great ones. Putmc a 
Ctlymt iniH ly^ru htind, Bardolph. 

jSard. Hold /F.trf.Trauetfe : t.hus,thus,thu$. 
Falfi. Come,man3gc me your Caiyiicr : fo; very well, 
, go-too,very goodjcxceeding good. O.giuemealwayes 
a;litlle.leane,old,chopt,bald Shot. Well laid (f.wr,thou 
asta good.Ssab s haldjchere is a Tetter for ihee. 



Sh:}l. Hee is not his Craftiiinafler, he* doth ocl aoe 
itTight. 1 rcmcn.ber at Mik-end.Greenc.whcn J I^y I 
ac Clcmenu liinc. J was then SirZ)<j^/7a« itit^rtkv-^i^ 
Show; there was a little cjuiuer fellow, and hBcwot'd 
manage you his Pcecc thus : and hee would aboc!? , 
and about, and come you in, and tome jiou in i B.-At 
tah, tah, would hee fay , Bownce wo<ild hee fay, c,tJ 
away againe w ould bee goe, and againe would he coff.c : 
J fliall neuer fee fuclia fellow. 

Fa/jf. Thefe fellowcs wiiUloewell, hlafier ShglL:ii, 
Farewell M afi cr Silence^ I will not vfc matiy wordes wItS 
you: fare yois welt. Gentlemen both; I ithanko youj 
1 muft a dozen mile to night, 3W»/jpt,gtuc the Souldierj 
Coates; 

Skul. Sir /ofcwjHeauen bleffc you, and pcolperyout 
Affaires, and fend vs Peace. As you returne, vifit 
my houfc. Let cur old acquaintance be renewed: per* 
aducnture I will with you to the Couu 

Falji. 1 would youwouldjMaficriA-^Zfew. 

shal. Go-too: I -haue /poke at aviicrd4 Hare |ou 
well. j?*ir-\ 

Faljl, Fare you well, gentle Gentlemen. Oa'BjSh.. 
dolph, leade the men ^way. As I returne, 1 wHl fetch o^ 
thefe lul^ices : 1 doc fee the. bottome of luflice Shtd. 
■low. How fubieft wee old men are to this vice of I^j 
ing? This fameftaru'd luHice hath Hone nothing but 
prate to me of the wildenefle of hii Youib, and the 
Featci hee hath done about Turnball-f^reec, and euety 
third word a Lye, duer pay'd to the hearer, then the 
Turkes Tribute. I doe remember him at C/^wwriliHie^ 
like a man made after SLpper,of a Cb&fe.paring.WIsefl 
hee was naked, hee was, forallth^, world, like a foiled 
Radifh, with a Head fantaftically caru'd vpsa ic yAih. t 
Knife. Hee was fo forlorne, that hi« Dioicniions (» 
any thickc fight ) wcf c inuinciblc.l Hee was the wry 
Ctnim of Famine ; hee came euer inthe tcre-wafdof 
the Fafiiion: And now is this Vices Dagger become a 
Squire, and talkes as- familiarly of [^ui of Gauni^as if 
hee had beene fworne Brother to him : nnd lie be fwornc 
hee neuer faw him but once in the Tilt-yard,and then he 
butn.- his Head, for croveding among the Marfiialsraen. 
I law it, and told loha of Gaunt, hee beat his Dwne 
Name, for you might hauc trufs'd him and all his Ap;^ 
parrell intoan Eele.-skinnc: ihe Cafe of a Treble Hoe- 
boy v/as a Monfion for him : a Court : and now hath 
hee LandjSnd Bccues. Well, 1 will be acquainted with 
him,if I returne : and ic Hiall goe hard, but I will make 
him a Philofophers two Stones to me. If the young 
Daccbea Bayt forthcold Pike, I fee no reafon,inthe 
Law of Nature, but / mayfnapat him. Lettimelliipe. 
and there anendv L.Jiiim^ 




Enter the ./Srch-l>ip>op, iJUoxrhraj^/IaitiP^f^ 
}ye>lmeTUnd, Caleuiltt 

"^ifh. AYhiT is this Forreft call'd? 

Hafi. lis Gualtrce Fortefl, and't fiiJI pJkaCeyeu* 
Grace. , 

"Bift}. Viae ftand(my Lords)snd fend difcouercrs forth, 
To know the numbers of our Enemies. 

mU, Wc< 






PART II. 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TREASONABLE PLAY OF Rl GUARD II. 

A most contagious treason come to light. 

Hon-y /"., zp, S. 

AFTER the Table of Contents of this book, especially that part 
of it which relates to the Cipher narrative, had been published, 
the remark was made, by some writers for the press: "Why, history 
knows nothing of the events therein referred to." And by this it 
was meant to imply that if the history of Elizabeth's reign did 
not give us these particulars they could not be true. The man 
who uttered this did not stop to think that it would have been a 
piece of folly for Francis Bacon, or any other man, to have labori- 
ously inclosed in a play a Cipher narrative regarding things that 
were already known to all the world. The reply of the critics 
would have been, in the words of Horatio: 

There needs no ghost, my Lord, come from the grave, 
To tell us this. 

A cipher story implies a secret story, and a secret story can not 
be one already blazoned on the pages of history. 

But it is indeed a shallow thought to suppose that the historian, 
even in our own time, tells the world all that occurs in any age or 
country. As Richelieu says: 

History preserves only the fleshless bones 
Of what we were; and by the mocking skull 
The would-be wise pretend to guess the features. 
Without the roundness and the glow of life, 
How hideous is the skeleton ! 
619 



620 TBE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

But, at the same time, I admit, that the Cipher narrative, to be 
true, must be one that coheres, in its general outHnes, with the 
well-known facts of the age of Elizabeth; and this I shall now 
attempt to prove that it does. 

The Cipher story tells us of a great court excitement over the 
so-called Shakespeare play of Richard II .; of an attempt on the 
part of the Queen to find out who was the real author of the play; 
of her belief, impressed upon her by the reasoning of Robert Cecil, 
Francis Bacon's cousin, that the purpose of the play was treason- 
able, and that the representation on the stage of the deposition and 
murder of the unfortunate Richard was intended to incite to civil 
war, and lead to her own deposition and murder. The Cipher also 
tells us that she sent out posts to find and arrest Shakspere, intend- 
ing to put him to the torture,— or " the question," as it was called in 
that day, — and compel him to reveal the name of the man for 
whom, as Cecil alleged, he was but a mask; and it also tells 'how 
this result was avoided by getting Shakspere out of the country 
and beyond the seas. 

What proofs have we that the Queen did regard the play of 
Richard II. as treasonable ? 

They are most conclusive. 

T. The Play. 

If the reader will turn to Knight's BiograpJiy of Shakspere., p. 

414, he will find the following: 

The Queen's sensitiveness on this head was most remarkable. There is a very 
curious record existing of "that which passed from the Excellent Majestie of 
Queen Elizabeth, in her Privie Chamber at East Greenwich, 4'' Augusti, 1601, 43** 
Reg. sui, towards William Lambarde," which recounts his presenting the Queen 
his Pandccta of historical documents to be placed in the Tower; which the 
Queen read over, making observations and receiving explanations. The following 
dialogue then takes place: 

Williani Laiiihardc. He likewise expounded these all according to their original 
diversities, which she took in gracious and full satisfaction; so her Majesty fell 
upon the reign of King Richard II., saying: "I am Richard II., know ve not 
that?" 

//'. L. [Lambarde]. .Such a wicked imagination was determined and attempted 
by the most unkind gentleman, the most adorned creature that ever your Majesty 
made. 

Her Alaji-sty. He that will forget God will also forget his benefactor^: this 
tragedy was played forty times in open streets arid iunises. , . . 

The "wicked imagination " that Elizabeth was Richard II. is fixed upon Essex 
by the reply of Lambarde, and the rejoinder of the Queen makes it clear that the 
" wicked imagination" was attempted through the performance of the tragedy of 



THE TREASONABLE PLAY OF RLCLLARD IL. 621 

The Deposition, of Richard IL. "This tragedy was played forty times in open 
streets and houses." The Queen is speaking six months after the outbreak ot 
Essex, and it is not improbable that the outdated play — that performance which in 
the previous February the players " should have loss in playing" — ^had been ren- 
dered popular through the partisans of Essex after his fall, and had been got up in 
open streets and houses with a dangerous avidity. 

But this is not all. 

It will be remembered that Essex had rettirned from Ireland, 
having patched up what was regarded by Elizabeth as an unreason- 
able and unjustifiable peace with the rebel O'Neill, whom he had 
been sent to subdue. He was placed under arrest. 

I again quote from Knight's Biography of S/iakspere, pp. 413 
and 414: 

Essex was released from custody in the August of 1600, but an illegal sentence 
had been passed upon him by commissioners, that he should not execute the offices 
of a Privy Councilor, or of Earl Marshal, or of Master of the Ordnance. The 
Queen signified to him that he was not to come to court without leave. He was a 
marked and a degraded man. The wily Cecil, who at this very period was carry- 
ing on a correspondence with James of Scotland, that might have cost him his 
head, was laying every snare for the ruin of Essex. He desired to do what he 
ultimately effected, to goad his fiery spirit into madness. Essex was surrounded by 
warm but imprudent friends. They relied upon his unbounded popularity, not 
only as a shield against arbitrary power, but as a weapon to beat down the strong 
arm of authority. During the six months which elapsed between the release of 
Essex and the fatal outbreak of 1601, Essex House saw many changing scenes, 
which marked the fitful temper and the wavering counsels of its unhappy owner. 
Within a month after he had been discharged from custody the Queen refused to 
renew a valuable patent to Essex, saying that "to manage an ungovernable beast 
he must be stinted in his provender." On the other hand, rash words that had 
been held to fall from the lips of Essex were reported to the Queen. He was made 
to say, " She was now grown an old woman, and was as crooked within as with- 
out." The door of reconciliation was almost closed forever. Essex House had 
been strictly private during its master's detention at the Lord Keeper's. Its gates 
were now opened, not only to his numerous friends and adherents, but to men of 
all persuasions, who had injuries to redress or complaints to prefer. Essex ' 
always professed a noble spirit of toleration, far in advance of his age; and he now 
received with a willing ear the complaints of all those who were persecuted by the 
government for religious opinions, whether Roman Catholics or Puritans. He 
Avas in communication with James of Scotland, urging him to some open assertion 
of his presumptive title t(j the crown of England. It was altogether a season of 
restlessness and intrigue, of bitter mortifications and rash hopes. Between the 
closing of the Globe Theater and the opening of the Blackfriars, Shakspere was, in 
all likelihood, tranquil amidst his family at Stratford. 

The winter comes, a*id then even the players are mixed up with the dangerous 
events of the time. Sir Gilly Merrick, one of the adherents of Essex, was accused, 
amongst other acts of treason, with " having procured the outdated tragedy of T/ie 
Deposition of RicJiard IL to be publicly acted at his own charge, for the entertain- 
ment of the conspirators." 



622 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

In the "Declaration of the Treasons of the late Earl of Essex and his Com- 
plices," which Bacon acknowledges to have been written by him at the Queen's 
command, there is the following statement: "The afternoon before the rebellion, 
Merrick, with a great company of others, that afterwards were all in action, had 
procured to be played before them the play of deposing King Richard II.; when it 
was told him by one of the players, that the play was old and they should have loss 
in playing it, because few would come to it, there was forty shillings extraordinary 
given to play, and so thereupon played it was." 

In the State Tiials this matter is somewhat differently mentioned: "The 
story of Henry IV. being set forth in the play, and in that play there being set 
forth the killing of the King upon a stage; the Friday before. Sir Gilly Merrick 
and some others of the Earl's train having an humor to see a play, they must needs 
have the play of Henry //'. The players told them that was stale, they could get 
nothing by playing that; but no play else would serve, and Sir Gilly Merrick gives 
forty shillings to Phillips, the player, to play this, besides whatsoever he could 
get." 

Augustine Phillips was one of Shakspere's company, and yet it is perfectly 
evident that it was not Shakspere's Richard II. nor Shakspere's Henry IV. that 
was acted on this occasion. In his Henry IV. there is no "killing of the King 
upon a stage." His Richard II., which was published in 1597, was certainly not 
an out-dated play in 1601. 

But Knight fails to observe that he has jtist quoted from Bacon's 
official declaration, written with all tlie proofs before him, that it 
^vas "the play of deposing King Richard II.'" And the very fact 
that there is no killing of a king in the play of Henry IV., while 
there is such a scene in the play of RicJiard II., shows that the 
writer of the Sfaic I'rials had fallen into an error. 

Neither is Knight correct in supposing that a play published in 
1597 could not have been an outdated play in 1601. It does not 
follow that because the play was first printed in 1597 it w^as first pre- 
sented on the stage in that year. Some of the Shakespeare Plays 
were not printed for twenty years after they first appeared, and a 
good many plays of that era were not printed at all. And a play 
may be outdated in a year — yes, in a month. And, moreover, the 
canny players would be ready enough with any excuse that would 
bring forty shillings into their pockets, whether it was true or not. 

Knight continues: 

A second edition of it [the play of Richard II. ^ had appeared in 1598, and it 
was no doubt highly popular as an acting-play. But if any object was to be gained 
by the conspirators in the stage representation of " deposing King Richard II.," 
Shakespeare's play would not assist that object. The editions of 1597 and 1598 do 
not contain the deposition scene. That portion of this noble history which con- 
tains the scene of Richard's surrender of the crown was not printed till 160S, and 
the edition in which it appears bears in the title the following intimation of its 
novelty: "The Tragedie of King Richard the Second, with neiu additions of the 



THE TREASONABLE PLAY OF RICLLARD LI. 623 

Pai-liainciit Sceane, and the dfposiii!^ of King Richard. As it hath been lately acted 
by the Kinge's servantes, at the Globe. By William Shake-speare." 

But Richard Grant White argues that, as there appear, in the 
quartos of 1597 and 1598, the words, "A woeful pageant have we 
here beheld," the deposition scene, which precedes these words in 
the play, must have been already written, but left out in the printed 
copies. For, says White, if the Abbot had not witnessed the depo- 
sition, he had not beheld "a woeful pageant." Therefore, the new 
additions, referred to in the title of the quarto of 1608, were addi- 
tions to the former printed quartos, not to the play itself. 

And if the original play, before it was printed, contained the 
deposition scene, why would it not have been acted ? The play 
was made to act ; the scene was written to act. So that it is plain, 
beyond a question, that it was Shakespeare's play of Richard II. 
which was mixed up in the treasonable events that marked the 
closing years of Elizabeth's reign. Around this mimic tragedy the 
living tragedy, in which Essex played the principal part, revolved. 

And Knight makes this further remark: 

In Shakespeare's Parliament scene our sympathies are wholly with King 
Richard. This, even if the scene were acted in 1601, would not have forwarded 
the views of Sir Gilly Merrick, if his purpose were really to hold up to the people 
an example of a monarch's dethronement. But, nevertheless, it may be doubted 
whether such a subject could be safely played at all by the Lord Chamberlain's 
players during this stormy period of the reign of Elizabeth. 

But it must be remembered that no man would dare, in that age, 
or in any other age under a monarchy, to openly advocate or justify 
the murder of kings; and hence the writer of the play puts many fine 
utterances therein, touching the divine right of kings. But the 
ignorant are taught, as Bacon said, more by their eyes than their 
judgment; and what they sinv in the play was a worthless king, who 
had misgoverned his country, deposed and slain. A very suggestive 
lesson, it might be, to a large body of worthy people who thought 
Elizabeth had also misgoverned her country, and had lived too 
long already, and who hoped great things for themselves from the 
coming in of King James. 

Now, we will see in the next chapter that a certain Dr. Hay- 
ward had put forth a pamphlet history, in prose, of this same depo- 
sition, and had dedicated it to Essex, and that he had been arrested 
and was threatened with torture. 



624 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



If, then, Elizabeth believed, as I have shown she did, that the 
play of King Richard II. was treasonable; that she was represented 
therein by the character of King Richard II., and that his fate was 
to be her fate if the conspirators triumphed, what more natural than 
that she should seek to have Shakspere arrested and locked up, and 
submitted to the same heroic course of treatment she contemplated 
for Dr. Hayward? For certainly the offense of the scholar, who 
merely wrote a sober prose history of Richard's life, for the perusal 
of scholars, was infinitely less than the crime of the man who 
had set those events forth, in gorgeous colors, upon a public 
stage, and had represented the deposition and killing of a king, 
night after night, before the very eyes of swarming and exulting 
thousands. 

And if, as we will show, the Queen thought that Hayward 
was not the real writer of his history, but that he was simply the 
cover for some one else, why may she not have conceived the same 
idea about Shakspere and his play ? 

Why was Shakspere not arrested ? The Cipher story tells the 
reason. 

And here we note a curious fact. Judge Holmes says: 

So far as we have any positive knowledge, the second edition of the Richard II., 
which was printed in 1598, with the scene of deposing King Richard left out, was 
the first one that I'ore tlic name of JVilliaiii Shakespeare on the title-page; and there 
may have been some special reasons as well for the publication of it at that time 
as for a close concealment of the real author's name.' 

Why should Shakespeare's name first appear, as the author of 
any one of the Plays, upon the title-leaf of a play which was mixed 
up with matters regarded as seditious and treasonable? And why 
was the deposition scene left out, unless the writer of the play knew 
that it was seditious? And if so, why was such a dangerous play 
published at all ? And observe the name of the author is given in 
this first play that bears his name as " Shakespeare^' not as the 
man of Stratford always signed his name, '■'■Shakspere.'' Was it 
because of the treasonable nature of the work that the real author 
allowed Shakspere this hole to retreat into? Was it that he might 
be able to say : " / never wrote the Plays ; that is not my name. 
My name is Shakspere, not Shakespeare" i 

' T!ie Authorship pf Shut;., vol. i. p. 135. 



THE TREASONABLE PLAY OF RICH AND IL 



625 



There are many things here the Cipher narrative will have to 
explain, when it is all unraveled. Certain it is that there are mys- 
teries involved in all this business. It was an age of plots and 
counter-plots. 

Knight well says: 

In her conversation with Lambarde Elizabeth uttered a great truth, which 
might not be unmingled with a retrospect of the fate of Essex. Speaking of the 
days of her ancestors, she said: "In those days force and arms did prevail, 
but now the wit of the fox is everywhere on foot so as hardly a faithful or virtuous 
man may be found." ' 

And, curiously enough, we here find that not only was one of 
the Shakespeare Plays mixed up with the events which caused 
Essex to lose his head and sent Southampton to the Tower, but we 
will see that Francis Bacon was also in some way connected with 
the play. 

And if we will concede that there is a probability that the Queen 
might have ordered the arrest of Shakspere, as she ordered the 
arrest of Dr. Hayward, the question is, Why was he not arrested ? 
If he remained in England, surely he would have been arrested if 
the Queen had so ordered. And if he had been arrested, we should 
have had some tradition of it, or some record of it, in the proceed- 
ings of courts or council. And if he was not arrested with 
Hayward, then he must have fled. How did he fly ? Who 
told him to fly? Who warned him in time to get out of the 
country? 

All this the Cipher tells. 

Let me put the argument clearly: 

1. Hayward wrote a pamphlet history of the deposition 
of King Richard II. Hayward was thrown into the Tower 
and threatened with torture to make him reveal the real 
author. 

2. Shakspere was the reputed author of a treasonable play, 
representing the deposition and killing of Richard II.; a play which 
was regarded as so objectionable that the hiring of the actors to 
play it was made one of the charges against Essex which brought 
his head to the block. 

3. Why, therefore, was Shakspere not arrested ? 

1 Knight'' s Pictorial Shak. — Biography, p. 415. 



626 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

II. Bacon Assigned to Prosecute Essex for Having Had 

Shakspere's Play Acted. 

But this is not all. 

When the Qeeen came to prosecute Essex for his treasons, the 
Council assigned to Francis Bacon, as his part, that very hiring of 
the actors to enact the deposition and murder of King Richard II. 
And what was Bacon's reply ? 

I quote from Judge Holmes: 

Nor was this all. But when the informal inquiry came on before the Lords 
Commissioners, in the summer of 1600, Bacon, in a letter to the Queen, desired 
to be spared from taking any part in it as Queen's Counsel, out of consideration of 
his personal obligations to his former patron and friend. But the Queen would 
listen to no excuse, and his request was peremptorily refused. It will be borne in 
mind that the Queen's object in this inquiry was to vindicate her own course and 
the honor of the crown without subjecting Essex to the dangers of a formal trial 
for high treason, and that her intention then was to check and reprove him, but not 
to ruin his fortunes. Bacon made up his mind at once to meet the issues thus 
intentionally forced upon him, and he resolved to show to her, as he says, that he 
"knew the degrees of duties;" that he could discharge the highest duty of the 
subject to the sovereign, against all obligations of private friendship toward an 
erring friend; wherein, says Fuller, very justly, "he was not the worse friend for 
being the better subject; " and that if he must renounce either, it should be Essex, 
rather than the Queen, who had been, on the whole, personally, perhaps, the better 
friend of the two to him : — well knowing, doubtless, that conduct is oftentimes ex- 
plained equally well by the basest as by the loftiest motives, and that the latter are 
generally the most difficult of appreciation. The next thing he heard was, that 
the Lords, in making distribution of the parts, had assigned to him, "by the con- 
clusion binding upon the Queen's pleasure directly, nolens volens" that part of the 
charges which related to this same "seditious prelude"; at which he was very 
much annoyed. And they determined, he says, "That I should set forth some 
undutiful carriage of my lord, in giving occasion and countenance to a seditious 
pamphlet, as it was termed, which was dedicated unto him, which was the book 
before mentioned of King Henry IV. Whereupon I replied to that allotment, and 
said to their lordships that it was an old matter, and had no manner of coherence 
■with the rest of the charge, being matters of Ireland, and thereupon that /, having 
been wrottged by bruits before, this would expose me to them more; and it would be 
said I gave in evidence ?nine own tales." What bruits? What tales? The Lords, 
evidently relishing the joke, insisted that this part was fittest for him, as "all the 
rest was matter of charge and accusation," but this only "matter of caveat and 
admonition": wherewith he was but "little satisfied," as he adds, "because I 
knew well a man were better to be charged with some faults, than admonished of 
some others." Evidently, here was an admonition which he did not like, and it is 
plain that he took it as personal to himself. Nevertheless he did actually swallow 
this pill; for we learn from other history that on the hearing before the Lords 
Commissioners "the second part of Master Bacon's accusation was, that a certain 
dangerous seditious pamphlet was of late put forth into print concerning the first 
year of the reign of Henry IV., but indeed the end of Richard II., and that my 
lord of Essex, who thought fit to be patron of that book, after the book had been 



THE TREASONABLE PLAY OE RLCLLAKD LL 627 

out a week, wrote a cold, formal letter to my lord of Canterbury to call it in again, 
knowing belike that forbidden things are most sought after."' 

But he who reads the proceedings of this trial will see that the 
play of Richard II. filled a much more conspicuous place than Dr. 
Hayward's pamphlet, and that it was to this, probably, that Bacon 
really alluded when he said he had been "the subject of bruits," 
and that the public would say " he gave in evidence his own tales." 
Does it not occur to every intelligent reader that Bacon, in this 
covert way, really says: "It has been reported that I am the real 
author of that play oi Richard 11; and now if I prosecute Essex 
for having had it played, it will be said that I am using my own 
composition for the overthrow of my friend"? 

And it seems to me that when the whole of the Cipher story is 
worked out, we shall find that Bacon was completely in the power 
of Cecil; that he (Cecil) knew that Bacon was the author of the play; 
that therefore he knew that Bacon had shared in the conspiracy; 
and that Bacon had to choose between taking this degrading work 
on his hands or going to the scaffold with Essex. If such was the 
case, it was the climax of Cecil's revenge on the man who had 
represented him on the stage as Richard III. It was humiliation 
bitterer than death. 

III. "The Isle of Dogs." 

And we turn now to another curious fact, illustrative of how 
greatly the Plays were mixed up in public affairs, and showing the 
spirit of sedition which at this time pervaded the very air. 

J. Payne Collier, in his Annals of the Stage, shows that in the 
year 1597 an order was given by the Queen's Council to tear down 
and destroy all the theaters of London, because one Nash, a play-writer, 
had, in a play called The Isle of Dogs, brought matters of state upon 
the stage; and Nash himself was thrown into prison, and lay there 
until the August following. 

What the seditious matter was that rendered The Isle of Dogs so 
objectionable to the government, we do not know; it must have 
been something very offensive, to cause a Queen who loved theat- 
ricals as much as Elizabeth did to decree the destruction of all the 
theaters of London. But all the details will probably be found 

^ Holmes, The Aiitko7-ship of Shak.^ pp, 255-7. 



62 8 THE CIPHER NA KRA TI VE. 

hereafter in the Cipher story, together with an explanation of the 
causes which induced the Queen to revoke her order. 
Collier says: 

We find Nash, in May, 1597, writing for the Lord Admiral's players, then under 
Philip Henslowe, and producing for them a play called The Isle of I^ogs, which is 
connected with an important circumstance in the history of the stage, viz., the 
temporary silencing of that company, in consequence of the very piece of which 
Nash was the author. The following singular particulars £lre extracted from the 
Diary kept by Henslowe, which is still, though in an imperfect and mutilated state, 
preserved at Dulwich College. Malone published none of them: 

Pd 14 of May, 1597, to Edw Jube, upon a notte from Nashe, twentye shellinges 
more for the lylle of Dogges, which he is wrytinge for the companey. 

Pd this 23 of August, 1597, to Henerey Porter to cary to T. Nashe, nowe att 
this tyme in the fiete for wrytinge of the Eylle of Dogges, ten shellinges, to be 
payde agen to me wen he cann. I saye ten shillinges. 

Pd to M. Blunsones, the Mr. of the Revelles man, this 27 of August, 1597, 
ten shellinges, for newes of the restraynt beying recaled by the lordes of the 
Queene's Counsell. 

Here we see that in the spring of 1597, Nash was employed upon the play, and, 
like his brother dramatists of that day, who wrote for Henslowe's company, 
received money on account. The Isle of Dogs was produced prior to the loth of 
August, 1597, because, in another memorandum by Henslowe (which Malone has 
quoted, though with some omissions and mistakes), he refers to the restraint at 
that date put upon the Lord Admiral's players. 

On the 23d of the same month, Nash was confined in the Fleet prison, in con- 
sequence of his play, when Henry Porter, also a poet, carried him ten shillings 
from Henslowe, who took care to register that it was not a gift; and on the 27th of 
August "the restraint was recalled" by the Privy Council. We may conclude 
also, perhaps, that Nash was about the same time discharged from custody. 

In reference to this important theatrical transaction, we meet with the following 
memorandum in the Registers of the Privy Council. It has never before been 
printed or mentioned: 

A Letter to Richard Topclyfe, Thomas Fo7i<lcr ami Ric. Skevington, Esijs., Doctour 

Fletcher and Mr. W libra ham. 

Uppon information given us of a lewd plaie that was plaied in one of the plaie 
bowses on the Bancke side, contayninge very seditious and sclaunderous matter, 
wee caused some of the players to be apprehended and comytted to pryson; 
whereof one of them was not only an actor, but a maker of parte of the said plaie. 
For as muche as yt ys thought meete that the rest of the players or actours in that 
matter shal be apprehended to receave soche punyshment as their lewde and 
mutynous behavior doth deserve; these shalbe, therefore, to require you to 
examine those of the plaiers that are comytted, whose names are knoune to yow, 
Mr. Topclyfe; what ys become of the rest of theire fellowes that either had their 
partes in the devysinge of that sedytious matter, or that were actours or plaiers in 
the same, what copies they have given forth of the said playe, and to whome, and 
such other pointes as you shall thincke meete to be demaunded of them; wherein 
you shall require them to deale trulie, as they will looke to receave anie favour. 
Wee praie you also to peruse soch papers as were founde in Nash his lodgings, 
which Ferrys, a messenger of the chamber, shall delyver unto you, and to certifie 
us the examynations you take. So, etc. 

Greenwich, 15th August, 1597. 

There is also another entry at page 327, dated 28 July, 1597, addressed to 
the Justices of the Peace of Middlesex and Surrey, directing that, in consequence 
of great disorders committed in common play-houses, and lewd matters handled on 



THE TREASONABLE PLA V OF RICHARD II. 



629 



the stages, the Curtain Theater and the theater near S'loreditch should be dis- 
mantled, and no more plays suffered to be played therein; and a like order to be 
taken with the play-houses on the Bankside, in Southwark, or elsewhere in Surrey, 
within three miles of London. In February, 1597-8, about six months before the 
death of Lord Burghley, are to be observed the first obvious indications of a dispo- 
sition on the part of the government of Elizabeth permanently to restrain theatrical 
representations. At that date, licenses had been granted to two companies of 
players only — those of the Lord Admiral and of the Lord Chamberlain — "to use 
and practise stage playes " in order that they might be the better qualified to appear 
before the Queen. A third company, not named, had, however, played "by way 
of intrusion," and the Privy Council, on the 19th February, 1597-8, sent orders to 
the Master of the Revels and to the Justices of the Peace of Middlesex and Surrey 
for its suppression.' 

IV. The Date of the Cipher Story. 

I am unable to fix with precision the date of the events nar- 
rated in the Cipher narrative. They may have been in the spring 
of 1597, at the same time the destruction of the theaters was ordered: 
they may have been later. I fall, as it were, into the middle of the 
story. Neither can we be sure of the year in which the first part of 
Henry IV. was really printed by the date upon it. We know that 
in the case of the great Folio of 1623 there have been copies found 
bearing the date of 1622, and one, I think, of 1624. It would be 
very easy to insert an erroneous date upon the title-leaf of the 
quarto of the ist Henry IV., and we have no contemporary record 
to show what was the actual date of publication. 

But I think I have established that the years 1597, 1598 and 1599 
were full of plots and conspiracies against the Queen and Cecil, 
and in favor of King James and Essex; and that the play of 
Richard II. was used as an instrumentalit}' to play upon the minds 
of men and prepare them for revolution. I have also shown that 
the Queen and the court were aware of these facts; that the 
arrest of Shakspere as the reputed author of the treasonable play 
must have accompanied the arrest of Dr. Hayward, unless some 
cause prevented it — and that cause the Cipher narrative gives us. 

It follows that the events set forth in the Cipher story are all 
within the reasonable probabilities of history. 

I The History of English Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the Stage, by J. Payne Collier, Esq., 
F. S. A., pp. 294-8. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE TREASONABLE HISTORY OF HENRY IV., WRITTEN BY 

DR. HA YWARD. 

My breast can better brook thy dagger's point 
Than can my ears thy tragic history. 

jd Henry I '/. , 7', b. 

JUDGE HOLMES gives the following interesting account of 
the pamphlet supposed to have been written by Dr. John Hay- 
ward, with, it was claimed, an intent to incite the Essex faction to 
the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth: 

Her disposition toward Essex had been kindly and forgiving, but she was 
doubtful of him, and kept a watchful eye upon his courses. As afterward it became 
evident enough, all his movements had reference to a scheme already formed in 
his mind to depose the Queen by the help of the Catholic party and the Irish rebels. 
He goes to Ireland in March, 1599, and after various doubtful proceedings and a 
treasonable truce with Tyrone, he suddenly returns to London, in October follow- 
ing, with a select body of friends, without the command, and to the great surprise 
and indignation of the Queen; and a few days afterward finds himself under arrest, 
and a quasi-prisoner in the house of the Lord Keeper. During this year Dr. Hay- 
ward's pamphlet appeared. It was nothing more than a history of the deposing of 
King Richard II., says Malone. It was dedicated to the Earl of Essex, without 
the author's name on the title-page; but that of John Hay ward was signed to the 
dedication. This Hayward was a Doctor of Civil Law, a scholar, and a distin- 
guished historian of that age, who afterward held an office in Chancery under 
Bacon. This pamphlet followed on the heels of the play, and it may have been 
suggested by the popularity of the play on the stage, or by the suppression of the 
deposing scene in the printed copy. 

According to Mr. Dixon, "it was a singular and mendacious tract, which, 
under ancient names and dates, gives a false and disloyal account of things and 
persons in his own age; the childless sovereign; the association of defense; the 
heavy burden of taxation; the levy of double subsidies; the prosecution of an Irish 
war, ending in a general discontent; the outbreak of blood; the solemn deposition 
and final murder of the Prince." Bolingbroke is the hero of the tale, and the exist- 
ence of a title to the throne superior to that of the Queen is openly affirmed in it. 
A second edition of the Richard II. had been printed in 1598, under the name of 
Shakespeare, but with the obnoxious scene still omitted; and it is not until 1608, in 
the established quiet of the next reign, that the omitted scene is restored in print. 
It is plain that during the reign of Elizabeth it would have been dangerous to have 
printed it in full; nevertheless, it had a great run on the stage during these years. 

Now, Camden speaks of both the book of Hayward and the tragedy of Richard 
II. He states that, on the first informal inquiry, held at the Lord Keeper's house, 
in June, 1600, concerning the conduct of Essex, besides the general charges of dis- 

630 



THE TREASONABLE HISTORY OF HENRY IV. 631 

obedience and contempt, " thej^ likewise charged him with some heads and articles 
taken out of a certain book, dedicated to him, about the deposing Richard II." 
This was doubtless Hayward's book. But in his account of the trial of Merrick 
(commander at Essex' house), he says he was indicted also, among other things, 
"for having procured the outdated tragedy of Richard II. to be publicly acted 
at his own charge, for the entertainment of the conspirators, on the day before the 
attack on the Queen's palace." "This," he continues, "the lawyers construed as 
done by him with a design to intimate that they were now giving the representa- 
tion of a scene, upon the stage, which was the next day to be acted in reality upon 
the person of the Queen. And the same judgment they passed upon a book 
which had been written some time before by one Hayward, a man of sense and 
learning, and dedicated to the Earl of Essex, viz.: that it was penned on purpose 
as a copy and an encouragement for deposing the Queen." He further informs us 
that the judges in their opinion "produced likewise several instances from the 
Chronicles of England, as of Edward II. and Richard II., who, being once be- 
trayed into the hands of their subjects, were soon deposed and murdered." And 
when Southampton asked the Attorney-General, on his trial, what he supposed 
they intended to do with the Queen when they should have seized her. Coke 
replied: "The same that Henry of Lancaster did with Richard II.; . . . when he 
had once got the King in his clutches, he robbed him of his crown and life." This 
account of Camden may be considered the more reliable in that, as we know from 
manuscript copy of his Annals, which (according fo Mr. Spedding) still remain in 
the Cottonian Library, containing additions and corrections in the handwriting of 
Bacon, it had certainly passed under his critical revision before it was printed in 
1627. And this may help us to a more certain understanding of the allusions 
which Bacon himself makes to those same matters in his Apology and in his 
account of the trial of Merrick; for, while in the latter he expressly names the 
tragedy of Richard II., in the former, as also in the Apophthegms, the book of Dr. 
Hayward only is mentioned by name, and there is, at the same time, a covert 
(yet very palpable) allusion in them both to the tragedy also, and to his personal 
connection with it.' 

And we find Bacon referring again to this same book of Dr. 
Hayward, in his Apology. After telling how he wrote a sonnet in 
the name of Essex, and presented it to the Queen, with a view to 
bringing about a reconciHation with the great offender, he adds: 

But I could never prevail with her, though I am persuaded she saw plainly 
whereat I leveled; and she plainly had me in jealousy, that I was not hers entirely, 
but still had inward and deep respect toward my Lord, more than stood at that time 
with her will and pleasure. About the same time I remember an answer of mine 
in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord's cause, which, though it grew 
from me, went after about in others' names. For her Majesty being mightily 
incensed with that book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story 
of the first year of King Henry IV.; thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the 
people's heads boldness and faction, said she had an opinion that there was treason 
in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it which might be drawn 
within case of treason. Whereto I answered: For treason, surely I found none; 
but for felony, very many. And when her Majesty hastily asked me wherein, I 
told her the author had committed very apparent theft; for he had taken most of 

' The Anthorship of Shakesfieare — Holmes, vol. i, pp. 243-6. 



632 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE, 

the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus and translated them into English, and put them 
into his text.' 

Judge Holmes shows that this jest did not apply to Dr. Hay- 
ward's book, but that it does apply to the play of Richard II., which 
is full of suggestions from Tacitus. But Bacon did not want to 
touch too closely upon the play; although one can readily see 
that if the Queen was thus moved against a mere pamphlet, she 
must have been much more incensed against that popular dramatic 
representation, which had been acted " more than forty times in 
houses and the public streets," as she told Lambarde, and which 
showed, in living pictures, the actual deposition and murder of 
her prototype, Richard \\. 

Judge Holmes seems to think that the words, "a matter which 
had some affinity with my Lord's cause, which, though it grew from 
me, went after about in others' names," meant that the pamphlet or 
play "grew from him;" but Mr. Spedding claims that it was the 
"answer" which "grew from him and went after about in others' 
names," and the sentence seems to be more reasonably subject to 
this construction. Bacon would hardly have dared to thus boldly 
avow that he wrote the pamphlet or play, although as a pregnant jest 
he may have constructed a sentence that could be read either way. 

Judge Holmes continues: 

So capital a joke did this piece of wit of his appear to Bacon, that he could not 
spare to record it among his Apophthegms, thus: 

58. The book of deposing King Richard II. and the coming in of Henry IV., 
supposed to be written by Dr. Hayward, who was committed to the Tower for it, 
had much incensed Queen Elizabeth, and she asked Mr. Bacon, being of her 
learned counsel, whether there was any treason contained in it? Mr. Bacon, 
intending to do him a pleasure, and to take off the Queen's bitterness with a merry 
conceit, answered, " No, Madam, for treason I cannot deliver an opinion that there 
is any, but very much felony." The Queen, apprehending it, gladly asked. How? 
and wherein? Mr. Bacon answered, "Because he hath stolen many of his sen- 
tences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus." 

The designation here given to the bock comes much nearer to a correct naming 
of the play than it does to the title of Dr. Hayward's pamphlet, and the suggestion 
that the Doctor was committed to the Tower for only being supposed to be the 
author, and that he, in his answer, intended to do the Doctor a pleasure, looks very 
much like an attempt at a cover; and is, to say the least, a little curious in itself. 
That Dr. Hayward had translated out of Tacitus was, of course, a mere pretense; 
but that the play drew largely upon the "sentences and conceits of Cornelius 
Tacitus," will be shown to be quite certain. - 

And Bacon alludes to this matter again, in his Apology, as follows: 

' Holmes, The A iithorsliip 0/ Skak., p. 250. ^ Ibid., p. 252. 




ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. 



THE TREASONABLE HISTORY OF HENRY IV. 633 

And another time, when the Queen could not be persuaded that it was his 
writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous author; and 
said, with great indignation, that she would have him racked to produce his author, 
I replied: " Nay, Madam, he is a doctor, never rack his person, but rack his style; 
let him have pen, ink and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue 
the story where it breaketh off, and I will undertake, by collating the styles, to 
judge whether he were the author or no." 

/ Now, all these things go to show that there was a storm in the 
court; that there were suspicions of treasonable motives on the 
part of some man or men in writing what were, on their face, 
harmless pamphlets or plays; that the Queen was enraged, and 
wanted to know who were the real authors. 

So much does history (or a few brief glimpses of history in the 
trial of Essex and the Apophthegms of Bacon) afford us; and the 
Cipher narrative takes up the story where history leaves it. But it 
will be seen that that narrative is perfectly consistent in all its parts 
with these historical events. 

II. The Capias Utlagatum. 

But, it will be said, did Shakspere ever fly the country ? Could 
he have done so without the fact being known to us ? Would he 
not have been arrested on his return ? Could he have ended his 
days peacefully at Stratford, if he had committed any offense 
against the laws ? 

I grant you that if he had been proclaimed as a fugitive frorri 
justice, we should have heard of it, either from the court records or 
tradition. But if he, an obscure actor, had wandered away and 
after a time had come back again, it is not likely any notice would 
have been taken of it that would have reached us. The man was, 
in the eyes of his contemporaries, exceedingly insignificant; and 
hence the absence of all allusions to his comings or goings. Hence 
we have his biographers arguing that he must have gone with his 
company to Scotland, and even Germany, while there is not the 
slightest testimony that he did or did not. In fact, his whole life 
is veiled in the densest obscurity. As William Henry Smith says, the 
only fact about him of which we are positive is the date of his death. 

But suppose that Shakspere and the play of Richai-d II. and 
Francis Bacon were all simply incidents of a furious contest 
between the Cecil faction and the Essex faction to rule England; 
suppose they w^ere luere pawns on the great checker-board of court 



634 



THE CIPHER NARK A TIVE. 



ambition. Then we can understand that at one stage of the game 
Essex' star may have been obscured and Cecil's in the ascendant; 
and Cecil may have filled the ears of the Queen with just such rep- 
resentations as are set forth in the Cipher story; and in her rage the 
Queen may have sent out posts to arrest Shakspere and his fol- 
lowers; and the Council may at the same time have issued the 
order, quoted in the last chapter, to tear down all the play-houses 
in London. 

But Essex was the Queen's favorite; he was young and hand- 
some, and she loved young and handsome men; in the last years of 
her life she enriched one young man simply because he was hand- 
some. Their quarrel may have been made up, and Essex may, in 
the rosy light of renewed confidence, have made light of Cecil's 
charges; and the Queen may have relented and revoked the order 
for the destruction of the Curtain and the Fortune, and agreed to 
let Shakspere return unmolested. 

Or, facts may have come out which showed that Bacon was the 
real author of the Plays; there may have been a scene and a con- 
fession; he may have apologized and denied any treasonable intent, 
for it was difficult to prove treason in a play which simply repeated 
historical events, larded with platitudes of loyalty; and he may 
have been forgiven, and yet never again fully trusted by the Queen. 
He may have described his own condition in the words which he 
puts into the mouth of Worcester, in the play of ist Henry IV.: 

It is not possible, it cannot be, 

The King would keep his word in loving us, 

He will suspect us still, and find a time 

To punish this offense in others' faults. 

Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes; 

For treason is but trusted as the fox, 

Who, ne'er so tame, so cherished and locked up. 

Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. 

Look how we can, or sad or merrily, 

Interpretation will misquote our looks.' 

Certain it is there was some cause that kept Francis Bacon 
down for many years despite all his ambition and ability. 

When the entire Cipher story is worked out we shall doubtless 
have the explanation of many facts in Bacon's life which now seem 
inexplicable. 

■ 1st Henry 1'/., v, 2. 



THE TREASONABLE HISTORY OE HENRY IV. 635 

But we have a piece of historical evidence which goes far to con- 
firm the internal narrative in the Plays. 

If the reader will turn back to page 292 of this work, he will 
find a copy of a letter addressed by Bacon to his cousin Robert 
Cecil, in 1601, complaining of some insults put upon him in open 
court by his old enemy, Mr. Attorney-General Coke. I quote from 
the letter the following: 

Mr. Attorney kindled at it and said: "Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth 
against me pluck it out, for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your 
head will do you good." I answered coldly, in these very words. " Mr. Attorney, 
I respect you; I fear you not; and the less you speak of your own greatness, the 
more will I think of it." 

He replied: " I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness toward you, zuho 
are less than little, less than the least; " and other such strange light terms he gave me, 
with such insulting which cannot be expressed. Herewith stirred, yet I said no 
more but this: "Mr. Attorney, do not depress me so far; for I have been your 
better, and may be again, when it please the Queen." With this he spake, neitner 
I nor himself could tell what, as if he had been born Attorney-General, and in 
the end bade me not meddle with the Queen's business, but mine own. . . . 
Then he said it 7vere good to clap a capias utlegattim upon my back I To which I only 
said he could not, and that he was at fault; for he hunted up an old scent. 

He gave me a mimber of disgraceful words besides, which I answered with silence.' 

Upon reading this, I said to myself, What is a capias iitlegatum ? 
Wherein does it differ from any ordinary writ? And I proceeded 
to investigate the question. I found that the old law authorities 
spell the word a little differently from Mr. Spedding: he has it, in 
the letter, " utkgatum; " the proper spelling seems to have been 
"utl(^7gatum." 

What does it mean? 

It is derived from the Saxon utlaghe, the same root from which 
comes the word outlaw. 

Jacobs says: 

Outlaw. Saxon, utlaghe; Latin, utlagatus. One deprived of the benefit of the 
law, and out of the King's protection. When a person is restored to the King's 
protection he is inlawed again. '■^ 

And what is outlawry. It means that the person has refused to 
appear when process was issued against him; that he has secreted 
himself or fled the country. I quote again from Jacobs: 

Outlawry. Utlagaria. The being put (?«^/o/"///t'/rt7iv. The loss of the benefit of 
a subject, that is, of the King's protection. Outlawry is a punishment inflicted 

' Spedding's Life and Works, vol. iii, ^Jacobs' Law Dictionary, vol. iv, p. 454. 

p. 2. London : Longmans. 



6^6 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

for a contempt in refusing to be amenable to the justice of that court ivhicli hath 
authority to call a defendant before them; and as this is a crime of the highest 
nature, being an act of rebellion against that state or community of which he is a 
member, so it subjects the party to forfeitures and disabilities, for he loses his 
liberain leg-e»i, is out of the King's protection, etc' 

And the capias utlagatutn was issued where a party who had thus 
refused to appear — who had fled or secreted himself — returned to 
his domicile. 

I again quote from Jacobs' Law Dictionary: 

CAriAs Utlagatum. Is a writ that lies against a person who is outlawed in any 
action, by which the sheriff is commanded to apprehend the body of the party out- 
lawed, for not appearing upon the exigent, and keep him in safe custody till the day 
of return, and then present him to the court, there to be dealt with for his con- 
tempt; who, in the Common Pleas, was in former times to be committed to the 
Fleet, there to remain till he had sued out the King's pardon and appeared to the 
action. And by a special capias utlagatum (against the body, lands and goods in 
the same writ) the sheriff is commanded to seize all the defendant's lands, goods 
and chattels, for. the contempt to the King; and the plaintiff (after an inquisition 
taken thereupon, and returned into the exchequer) may have the lands ex- 
tended and a grant of the goods, etc., whereby to compel the defendant to appear; 
which, when he doth, if he reverse the outlawry, the same shall be restored 
to him."'* 

Now, then, when the Attorney-General, Coke, threatened Bacon 
with a capias utlagatutn, he practically charged him with being an 
outlaw; with having refused to appear in some proceeding when 
called upon by the government's law officers; with being, in short, 
out of the Queen's protection; with having forfeited all his goods 
and chattels. 

But we know that Bacon never fled the country; that he always 
had real estate which could have been seized upon if he had done 
so. What, then, did Coke mean ? It was a serious charge for one 
respectable attorney to make against another. 

Anciently outlawry was looked upon as so horrid a crime that any one 
might as lawfully kill a person outlawed as he might a wolf or other noxious 
animal.^ 

But suppose A employs B to commit some act in the nature of . 
a crime, but evidence cannot be obtained against A unless B is 
taken and compelled to testify against A; and suppose, under these 
circumstances, A induces B to fly the country. Now, if it can be 
shown that there was some connection between A and the flight 
of B, would not the outlawry of B attach to A, his principal ? 

I Jacobs' Line Dictionary, vol. iv, p. 454. "^ Ibid., pp. 394, 395. ' Ibid., p. 455. 



THE TREASONABLE HISTORY OF HENRY IV. 637 

Jacobs says: 

4thly. That it seems the better opinion that where there are more than one 
principal, the exigent shall not issue till all of them are arraigned; and herein it is 
said by Hale that if A and B be indicted as principals in felony, and C as acces- 
sory to them both, the exigent against the accessory shall stay till both be attainted 
by outlawry or plea; for that it is said if one be acquitted the accessory is dis- 
charged, because indicted as accessory to both, therefore shall not he be put to answer 
till both be attaint; but hereof he adds a dubitatur, because, though C be access- 
ory to both, he might have been indicted as accessory to one, because the felonies 
are in law several; but if he be indicted as accessory to both, he must be proved so. 
2 Hazvk. P. C, c. 27, § 132 — 2 Ilale'i History P. C, 200-201. If one exigent be 
awarded against the principal and accessory together, it is error only as to the 
latter, i Term Rep. K. B., 521. In treason all are principals; therefore, process 
of outlawry may go against him who receives, at the same time, as against him 
that did the fact. / Hales History P. C, 238.' 

Now, then, if Shakspere fled the country to escape arrest on 
the charge of writing a treasonable play, and Bacon was the prin- 
cipal in the offense, Bacon could not have been proceeded against, 
under these rulings, until Shakspere was arraigned: hence, in some 
sense, it might be claimed by Coke that Bacon was an outlaw by 
the act of his accessory. And thus we can understand Coke's 
threat to issue a capias iitlagatum against Bacon. 

And it will be observed that Bacon understands what Coke 
referred to. There was no surprise expressed by him. He knew 
there was some past event which gave color to Coke's threat, but 
he defied him. His answer was: 

To which I only said he could not, and that he was at fault; /cr he hunted up an 
old scent. 

And Bacon tells us Coke gave him "a number of disgraceful 
words besides," but he is careful not to tell what they were. And 
it will be observed that while Bacon very often refers in his letters 
to bniits and scandals which attack his good name, he never stops 
to explain the nature of them. Did they refer to the Shakespeare 
Plays ? 

And observe, too, how he lays this matter before Cecil. I read 
between the lines of the letter something like this: 

You know the agreement and understanding was that my connection with the 
Plays was to be kept secret, and here you have told it, or some one has told it, all 
to my mortal enemy. Coke; and he is blurting it all out in open court. I appeal 
to you for protection; you must stop him. 

' Jacobs' Laiv DictionarVy vol. iy, p. iig. 



638 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



If this be not the correct interpretation of the letter, why should 
Bacon, complain to his enemy, Cecil, about something his other 
enemy, Coke, said against him concerning some threat to dig up an 
old matter and clap a writ of outlawry on his back ? 

It seems to me, however, that all these historical facts form a 
very solid basis for the Cipher narrative which follows. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 

Give me the ocular proof. 

Othello, ill, J. 

I AM aware that nine-tenths of those who read this book will 
turn at once to that part of it which proves the existence of a 
Cipher in the Shakespeare Plays. That is the all-important ques- 
tion: that is the essence and material part of the work. 

Is there or is there not a Cipher in the Plays ? A vast gulf sepa- 
rates these two conclusions. Are the Plays simply what they are 
given out to be by Heminge and Condell, untutored outpourings 
of a great rustic genius; or are they a marvelously complicated 
padding around a wonderful internal narrative? 

I am sorry to see that some persons seem to think that this 
whole question merely concerns myself, and that it is to be an- 
swered by sneers and personal abuse. I am the least part, the most 
insignificant part, of this whole matter. 

The question is really this: Is the voice of Francis Bacon again 
speaking in the world ? Has the tongue, which has been stilled for 
two hundred and sixty years, again been loosened, and is it about 
to fill the astonished globe with eloquence and melody ? 

If it were announced to-morrow that from the grave at Stratford 
there were proceeding articulated utterances, — muffled, if you 
please, but telling, even in fragments, a mighty and wonderful 
story, — how the millions would swarm until all the streets and lanes 
and fields and farms of Stratford were overflowed with an excited 
multitude; how the foremost ranks would sink upon their knees, 
around the privileged persons who were at the open tomb; how 
every word would be repeated backward, from man to man, with 
reverent mien and bated breath, to be, at last, flashed on the 
wings of the lightning to all the islands and continents; to every 
habitation of civilized man on earth. 

639 



640 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

I ask all just-minded men to approach this revelation in the 
same spirit. Abuse and insults may wound the individual: they 
cannot help the untruth nor hurt the truth. 

I. Thk Cipher a Reality. 

That the Cipher is there; that I have found it >- 'tat the nar- 

rative given is real, no man can doubt who reads this book to 
the end. There may be faults in my workmanship; there are none 
in the Cipher itself. All that I give is reality; but I may not give all 
there is. The difficulties are such as arise from the wonderful com- 
plexity of the Cipher, and the almost impossibility of the brain 
holding all the interlocking threads of the root-numbers in their 
order. Some more mathematical head than mine may be able to 
do it. 

I would call the attention of those who may think that the 
results are accidental to the fact that each scene, and, in fact, each 
column and page, tells a different part of the same continuous story. 
In one place, it is the rage of the Queen; in another, the flight of 
the actors; in another. Bacon's despair; in another, the village 
doctor; in another, the description of the sick Shakspere; in 
another, the supper, etc.— all derived from the same series of num- 
bers used in the same order. 

II. The Nicknames of the Actors. 

In the Cipher narrative, the actors are often represented by 
nicknames, probably derived from the characters they usually played. 
And Henry Percy is sometimes called Hotspur, because that was 
the title given to the great Henry Percy, of Henry IV. 's time. 

It is an historical fact that Francis Bacon had a servant by the 
name of Henry Percy. His mother alludes to him, in one of her 
letters, as, ''that bloody Percy." His relations to Bacon were very 
close. He seems to have had charge of all Bacon's manuscripts at 
the time of his death. It is possible Bacon may have intended, at 
one time, to authorize the publication of an avowal of his author- 
ship of the Plays. He said in the first draft of his will: 

But toward the durable part of memory, which consisteth in my writings, I re- 
quire my servant Henry Percy to deliver to my brother Constable all my manu- 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED, \ 641 

script compositions, and the fragments also of such as are not finished; to the end 
that if any of them be fit to be published, he may accordingly dispose of them. 
And herein I desire him to take the advice of Mr. Selden, and Mr. Herbert, of the 
Inner Temple, and to publish or suppress what shall be thought fit} 

It is als'^' ..-nt that Bacon held Henry Percy in high respect. 
In his last a 'jsays: 

I give to Mr. Henry Percy one hundred pounds.^ 

He was not a mere servant; he was ''Master Henry Percy." 
Did this tender and respectful feeling represent Bacon's gratitude 
to Henry Percy for invaluable services in a great crisis of his life ? 

We see exemplified the habit of the actors in assuming the names 
of the characters they acted on the stage, in Shakspere's remark in 
the traditional jest that has come down to us: " William the Con- 
queror comes before Richard III.;" representing himself as Wil- 
liam the Conqueror, and Burbage by the name of his favorite role, 
the bloody Duke of Gloster. 

As illustrating still further how the names of the actors became 
identified with the names of the characters they impersonated, I 
would call attention to the following fact: 

Bishop Corbet, writing in the reign of Charles I., and giving a description of 
the battle of Bosworth, as narrated to him on the field by a provincial tavern- 
keeper, tells us that when the perspicuous guide 

Would have said. King Richard died. 
And called, a horse ! a horse ! he Burbage cried. ^ 

III. Queen Elizabeth's Violence. 

It may be objected by some that the scene in which the Queen 

beats Hayward was undignified and improbable; but he who reads 

the history of that reign will find that Queen Elizabeth was a 

woman of the most violent and man-like temper. We find it 

recorded that she boxed Essex' ears, and that he half-drew his 

sword upon her, and swore " he would not take such treatment 

from Henry VIII. himself, if he were alive." And Rowland White 

records: 

The Queen hath of late used the fair Mrs. Bridges with words and blows of 
anger. 

' Spedding, Life and Works, vol. vii, p. 540. ' Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, p. 96. 

2 Ibid., p. 542. 



642 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



Mrs. Bridges was one of the Queen's maids-of-honor who had 
offended her. 

IV. The Language of the Period. 

I would touch upon one other preliminary point before coming 
to the Cipher story. Some persons may think that the sentences 
which I give as parts of the internal narrative sound strangely, and 
are strained in their construction; but it must be remembered that 
the English of the sixteenth century was not the English of the 
nineteenth century. The powers of our tongue have been vastly 
increased. It is curious to note how many words, now in daily use, 
carlnot be found at all in the Shakespeare Plays. Here are some of 
them: 



Actually, 

Admission, 

Alternate, 

Alternately, 

Amuse, 

Amusement. 

Amusing, 

Announce, 

Announcement, 

Apologize, 

Artful, 

Assert, 

Assort, 

Attack, 

Aware, 

Brutal, 

Cargo, 

Clenches, 

Completely, 

Concede, 

Concession, 

Coffee, 

Confinement, 

Conflagration, 

Connect, 

Connected, 

Connection, 

Considerable 

Constructed, 

Correctly, 

Decided, 

Declaration, 

Degradation, 



Dejection, 

Despicable, 

Director, 

Disappointment, 

Disappoint, 

Disgust, 

Earnings, 

Effort, 

Efforts, 

Entitled, 

Era, 

Exclusively, 

Exertions, 

Exhausted, 

Exorbitant, 

Failure, 

Fatigue, 

Farce, 

Fees, 

Fiendish, 

Flog, 

Flogged, 

Fun, 

Funny, 

Grasping, 

Humiliation 

Inability, 

Income, 

Indebtedness, 

Intense, 

Interfere, 

Interference, 

Lineage, 



Mob, 

Occupied, 

Pauper, 

Petitioning, 

Pledged, 

Popularity, 

Position, 

Precarious, 

Production, 

Prominent, 

Promote, 

Rapid, 

Rapidly, 

Rebuff, 

Recent, 

Reduce, 

Ridicule, 

Risk, 

Series, 

Shrubbery, 

Starvation, 

State (meaning to declare). 

Statement, 

Stating, 

Surround, 

Surrounding, 

Tea, 

Tobacco, 

Treated, 

Tieatment, 

Valuable, 

Various, 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 643 

To illustrate the difference in the style of expression, between 

that day end this, let us take this brief letter, written by Bacon in 

1620; 

I went to Kew for pleasure, but I met with pain. But neither pleasure nor 
pain can withdraw my mind from thinking of his Majesty's service. And because 
his Majesty shall see how I was occupied at Kew, I send him these papers of Rules 
for the Star-Chamber, wherein his Majesty shall erect one of the noblest and dur- 
ablest pillars for the justice of this kingdom in perpetuity that can be; after by his 
own wisdom and the advice of his Lords he shall have revised them, and estab- 
lished them. The manner and circumstances I refer to my attending his Majesty. 
The rules are not all set down, but I will do the rest within two or three days. 

Or take this sentence from a letter written by Bacon, in 1594, to 
the Lord Keeper Puckering: 

I was wished to be here ready in expectation of some good effect; and therefore 
I commend my fortune to your Lordship's kind and honorable furtherance. My 
affection inclineth me to be much your Lordship's; and my course and way, in all 
reason and policy for myself, leadeth me to the same dependence; hereunto if 
there shall be joined your Lordship's obligation in dealing strongly for me as you 
have begun, no man can be more yours. 

I need not say that no person to-day would write English in that 
fashion. And that we do not so write it is partly due to Bacon him- 
self, because, not only in the Plays, but in his great philosophical 
works, he has infinitely polished and perfected our language. He 
studied, in the Fromus, the "elegancies" of speech; in the Plays he 
elaborated " the golden cadence of poesy;" ' and in The Advancement 
of Learning he gave us many passages that are perfectly modern in 
their exquisite smoothness and rhythm. 

If the Cipher sentences are quaint and angular, the reader will 
therefore remember that he is reading a dialect three hundred years 
old. 

V. Our Fac-similes. 

Since the discussion arose about my discovery of the Cipher in 
the Plays, one of those luminous intellects which occasionally 
adorn all lands with their presence, and which, I am happy to say, 
especially abound in America, has made the profound observation 
that probably I had doctored the Plays of Shakespeare, and changed 
the phraseology, so as to work in a pretended Cipher ! 

That rasping old Thersites of literature, Carlyle, said, in his 

^Love^s Labor Lost, iv, z. 



644 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

acrid and bowie-knife style: " England contains twenty-seven mil- 
lions of people, — mostly foolsT Now, while I have, as we say in the 
law, "no knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief" as 
to the truth or falsity of this observation, touching the English peo- 
ple, I can vouch for it that, to some extent, Carlyle's remark applies 
with great force to my native country. And, therefore, to meet the 
observation of the luminous intellect first referred to, and prevent it 
being taken up and echoed and re-echoed by multitudinous other 
luminous intellects, as is their wont, I have requested my publishers 
to procure, fac-sif/iiles of the pages of the Folio under consideration 
in my book, copied by the sun itself, from the pages of one of those 
invaluable copies of the original Folio of 1623 which still exist among 
us. And consequently Messrs. Peale & Co. proceeded to New York, 
and, upon application to Columbia College, which possesses the most 
complete copy, I am informed, in the United States, they were per- 
mitted, through the kindness and courtesy of the officers of the Col- 
lege, to photograph the original pages, (pages that might have been 
at one time in the hands of Francis Bacon himself), directly onto the 
plates on which they were engraved. The great volume was 
sent every day, in the care of an officer of the College, to the ar- 
tists' rooms, and the custodian was instructed never to permit it to 
be taken out of his sight for a single instant, so precious is it 
esteemed. And we have the certificate of Mr. Melvil Dewey, 
Chief Librarian of Columbia College, to the fidelity of the fac- 
similes now presented in this volume. They are, of course, re- 
duced in size, to bring them within the compass of my book, but 
otherwise they are exact and faithful reproductions of the original. 
The numbers given on their margins, and the underscoring in 
red ink of every tenth word, were printed on them subsequently, 
to enable the critical to satisfy themselves that the words actually 
occupy the numerical places on the pages which I assert they do. 
Here is the certificate referred to: 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 645 



Columbia College Library 

MlLVn. DswEY. Chief Libn. Mad;s«n »v. 4 49* St . 

New York. 




/7 «88' 



7 
















Certificate of the LIBRARIA^ of CoLUMinA College. 



646 THE CIPHER NARK A TIVE. 

VI. Another Brilliant Suggestion. 

But another of those luminous intellects (whose existence is a 
subject of perpetual perplexity to those who reverence God) has 
made the further suggestion that, granted there is a Cipher in the 
Plays, Bacon put it there to cheat Shakspere out of his just rights 
and honors ! Bacon, — says this profound man, — was a scoundrel; 
he was locked up in the Tower for bribery (the same Tower in 
which Mr. Jefferson Brick insisted Queen Victoria always resided, 
and ate breakfast with her crown on); and being in Caesar's Tower, 
and having nothing else to do, this industrious villain took Shak- 
spere's Plays and re-wrote them, and inserted the Cipher in them, 
in which he feloniously claimed them for himself. 

But as Bacon was only in the Tower one night, the perform- 
ance of such a work would be a greater feat of wonder than any- 
thing his admirers have ever yet claimed for him. 

But if any answer is needed to this shallowness, it is found in 
the fact that the original forms of the Shakespeare Plays, where 
they have come down to us, as in the case of the first copy of The 
Merry Wives, Hamlet, Henry V., etc., as they existed before they 
were doubled in size and the Cipher injected into them, are very 
meager and barren performances; and that it is in the Plays, <z//<'r 
Bacon had inserted the Cipher story in thcni (that night in the Tower), 
that the real Shakespearean genius is manifested. 

And if any further answer were needed it will be found in the 
revelations of the Cipher itself. It will be seen that in many places 
almost every word is a Cipher word. If I might be permitted, in so 
grave a work as this, to recur to the style of the rostrum, I would 
cite an anecdote: 

A father had a very troublesome son, — not to say vicious, but 
very vivacious. The boy was taken sick. A doctor was sent for. 
The doctor applied a mustard-plaster. The father held a light 
for him. 

"Doctor," said the fond parent, "while you are at it, could you 
not put a plaster on this young gentleman that would draw the 
d 1 out of him ? " 

The doctor, who knew the boy well, replied, " I fear, my dear 
sir, if I did so, there would be nothing left of the boy." 



THE CIPIIEK EXPLAINED. 



647 



And so I would say that, if you take out of the Plays the Bacon- 
ian Cipher, there will be nothing left for the man of Stratford to 
lay claim to. 

And here I would remark that it is sorrowful — nay, pitiful — 
nay, shameful — to read the fearful abuse which in sewer-rivers 
has deluged the fair memory of Francis Bacon in the last few 
months, in these United States, since this discussion arose; — let loose 
by men who know nothing of Bacon's life except what they have 
learned from Macaulay's slanderous essay. If Bacon had been a 
common malefactor, guilty of all the crimes in the calendar, and 
was still alive, and still persecuting mankind, they could scarcely 
have attacked him more brutally, viciously, savagely or vindictively. 
It teaches us all a great lesson:- — that no man should ever here- 
after complain of slanders and unjust abuse, when such torrents of 
obloquy can be poured, without stint, by human beings, over the good 
name of one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. And 
it suggests that if the Darwinian theory be true, that we are 
descended from the monkeys, then it would appear that, in some 
respects, we have not improved upon our progenitors, but possess 
traits of baseness peculiarly and exclusively human. 

VII. The Method of the Cipher. 

I have stated that there are five root-numbers for this part of 
the narrative. These are 505, 506, 513, 516, 523. These are all modi- 
fications of one number. 

I have also stated that these numbers are modified by certain 
other numbers, which appear on page 73 and page 74, to-wit: on 
the last page of the first part of King Henry IV., and the first page 
of the second part of King Henry IV. These numbers I have 
given on pages 581, etc., ajife. 

In the working out of the Cipher, 505 and 523 cooperate with 
each other: that is, at first part of the story is told by 505; then it 
interlocks with 523; or a number due to 523 alternates with a 
number due to 505. The number 506, as will be shown, is separ- 
ately treated. The numbers 513 and 516 go together, just as 505 
and 523 do. Afterwards a number which is a product, we will say, 
of 505, goes forward, separating from the 523 products, and is put 



648 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

through its own modifications, as will be explained hereafter, and 
the same is true of the products of 523. 

In the order of the narrative the words growing out of 513 and 
516 precede the words growing out of 505 and 523. 

The first "modifiers" used are 2 18 and 219, and 197 and 198; then 
follow 30 and 50. These are the modifiers found in the second 
column of page 74; then follow the modifiers found on page 73. 

Where the count begins from the beginning of a scene, it also 
runs from the end of the same scene. Where it begins to run from 
a scene in the midst of an act, it is carried to the beginnings and 
ends of that scene and of all the other scenes in that act. Where it 
begins from a page alone, it is confined to that page, or to the 
column next but one thereafter, and moves only in one direction. 
Where the Cipher runs from the beginning of a scene and goes for- 
ward, it will also to a certain extent move backward. 

The numbers acquired by working one page become root-num- 
bers, and are carried forward or backward to other pages. 

Thus, if we commence with the root-number 505, in the first 
column of page 75, we find two subdivisions in that column, due to 
the break in the narrative caused by the words of the stage direc- 
tion: ^^ Enter Morton." There are 193 words in the upper subdi- 
vision, and 253 in the lower. If we deduct these from 505 and 523, 
for instance, we have these results: 



505 505 523 523 

J^ 253 193 253 

312 252 330 270 

Now, these numbers, we will see, are carried forward and back- 
ward, in due order, and yield, according to the page or column 
to which they are applied, different parts of the Cipher story. But 
as these numbers would soon exhaust the number of pages, col- 
umns, scenes and fragments of scenes to which they could be ap- 
plied, they are in turn modified again, as already stated, by the 
modifiers on pages 73 and 74. Thus, 30 and 50 deducted from 312 
make the new root-numbers 282 and 262; treated the same way, 523 
produces the root-numbers 300 and 280; and these new root-num- 
bers, like the others, are carried entirely through both the first and 
second parts of Henry IV. 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



649 



And the reader will observe that the order in which these num- 
bers progress is regular and orderly. For instance, the above 
numbers, 282, 262, 300, 280, will work out an entirely different part 
of the story from the numbers derived by deducting the first col- 
umn of page 74, with its modifications, from 505 and 523. And the 
order is in the historical order of the narrative. 

For instance, if we commence on the first column of page 75, 
and work forward, the story that comes out is about the Queen 
sending out the soldiers to find Shakspere and his fellows, and the 
flight of the terrified actors. This is all produced by 505, 506, 513, 
516, 523, modified first by those two fragments of that first column 
of page 75, to-wit, 193 and 253; and these, in turn, modified by the 
modifying numbers in the second column of page 74, to-wit, 50, 30, 
218, 198, or 49, 29, 219 and 197, accordingly as we count from the 
last word of one fragment or the first word of the next. 

And this story, so told, it will be seen, is different from and sub- 
sequent in order to the story told by commencing to work from the 
last column of page 74, instead of the first column of page 75, which 
relates to the Queen's rage, the beating of Hayward, etc. While, if 
we commence at the first column of page 74, the story told is about 
the bringing of the news to Bacon. 

VIII. The Story Reduced to Diagrams. 

For instance, let me represent the flow of the story, from the 
fountain of one column into the pool of another, by diagrams; the 
reader remembering that the story always grows out of those same 
root-numbers, 505, 506, 513, 516, 523, modified always, in the same 
order, by the same modifiers, 30, 50, 198, 218, 27, 62, 90, 79, etc. 



I St col., p. 74. 




2d col., p. 74. 




2d col., p. 74- 




I St col., p. 75. 


The count 




The story 




The count 




The Queen's 
rage, her 


originating 




of Bacon 




originating 




on this 




receiving 




here tells 




beating 


Column 




the news. 




the story 




Hayward. 


tells - 








of- 




etc. 



650 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



1 St col., p. 75. 




2d col.,p.75. 




2dcoI.,p.7S. 




I St col., p. 76. 


The count 




Sending for 




The count 




How Bacon 


originating 




Shakspere, 




originating 




was 


here tells 




the flight 




here tells 




overwhelmed 
with the 


the story 




of the 




the story 












of — 




news, etc. 


o£- 




actors, etc. 











I St col., p. 76. 




2d col., p. 76. 


The count 




The bringing 


originating 




of Bacon's 


here tells 




body home, 


tlie story 




and sending 


of = 




for the 
doctor. 



2d col 


, p. 76. 


The 


count 


originating | 


here 


tells 


the 


story 


of- 





I St col., p. 77- 



The doctor's 
treatment 

of the 
case, etc. 



But it will be said that we have a break here, between Bacon be- 
ing overwhelmed with the bad news, and the carrying home of his 
body after he had taken poison. Yes, but the missing part of the 
story is told by going backward instead of forward in the same due 
and regular order. 

That is to say, we take the root-numbers produced by modifying 
505, 506, 513, 516 and 523 by 193 and 253 (first column of page 75), 
and we carry those root-numbers backward to the first column of 
page 73, and we work out the directions of the Queen as to how 
Shakspere was to be treated when arrested, how he was to be of- 
fered rewards to reveal the real author of the Plays, etc.; and it 
also tells how the Queen expressed her disbelief in Bacon's guilt, 
and denounced his cousin Cecil for his lies and slanders concerning 

him. 

And when we take the root-numbers produced by the modifying 
numbers found in the first column of page 74, and which told of how 
the news was brought to Bacon, the same numbers so produced 
are carried backward to the next page, and, working backward 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



651 



and forward, they tell that which follows in due order, to-wit, 
the conversation between Bacon and his brother Anthony, in which 
Anthony urges him to fly. Thus: 



I St col., p. 74. 



The Queen's 
orders as to 
Shakspere's 
treatment, 
etc. 



And again: 



2 d coL, p.74. 



I St col., p. 75. 




The numbers 
originating 
here, carried 
back, would 

. tell - / 



ist col., p. 73. 




2 d col., p. 73. 




I St col., p.74. 


The 

conversation 

of the 

brothers. 


*~«^.. 






The numbers 
originating 

here are 






\_ 




carried 
backward 
and teU_/ 



While Bacon's taking the poison is told partly on page 76 and 
partly on page 72, the finding of the body is told in the second 
column of page 72, and carried by tke root-numbers so created 
forward to page 76. The same rule applies to all the narrative 
which I have worked out: the story radiates from that common 
center, which I have called " The Heart of the Mystery, " the dividing 
line between the first and second parts of the play of Henry IV. 

Many have supposed that the Cipher story was made by jump- 
ing about from post to pillar, picking out a word here and a word 
there; but the above diagrams will show that it is nothing of the 
kind. It moves with the utmost precision and the most microscopic 
accuracy, from one point of departure to another, carrying the num- 
bers created by that point of departure with it. And the cunning 



652 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

with which the infolding play is adjusted to the requirements of 
the infolded story is something marvelous beyond all parallel in the 
achievements of the human mind. One of the difficulties I found 
in tracing it out was this very exactness: the difference of a column 
would make the greatest difference in the story told, and hence, if I 
was not very careful, I would have two different parts of the narra- 
tive running into each other. 

IX. A Cipher of Words, not Letters. 

One thing that must be understood is this, that the Cipher is 
not one of letters, but of words. This renders it, in one sense, the 
more simple. There is no translating of alphabetical signs into 
aaaab, abbaa, abaab, etc., as in Bacon's biliteral cipher, which Mr. 
Black and Mr. Clarke sought to apply to the inscription on Shak- 
spere's tombstone. The ^voj-ds come, out by the count, and all of 
them. 

To illustrate the Cipher in this respect, we will suppose the 

reader was to find in an article, referring to the cipher-writings of 

the middle ages, a sentence like this : 

For there can be no doubt whatever, that if it be examined closely, there is 
reason to believe that a cunningly adjusted and concealed cipher story, and one 
not of alphabetical signs, but of words, may be found hidden, not only in books, 
but letters of those ages, of which the very intricate key is lost. It may be re- 
vealed by some laborious student in the future, but for the present age all the great 
stories told therein, in cryptogram, are hopelessly buried. 

Now, the reader might suppose this sentence to be just what it 
appears to be on its surface. But if we arrange the words numer- 
ically, placing the proper number over each word, and then pick 
out every fifth word, we will find that they form together this sen- 
tence: 

N'u : it is a cipher of ':vo7-ds, tiot letters, which is revealed i/i The Great Crypto- 
gram. 

Now, the Cipher in the Plays is on the same principle, only more 
complicated: — the internal words hold an arithmetical relation to 
the external sentence, and you have but to count the words to elim- 
inate the story. But, instead of the number being, as in the above 
sentence, 5, it is one which is the product of multiplying a certain 
number in the first column of page 74 with another; this number 
being in turn put through various modifications. 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 653 

X. How THE Cipher was Made. 

But it may be asked: In what way was the Cipher narrative 
inserted in the Plays? 

Bacon, as I suppose, first wrote out his internal story. Then he 
determined upon the mechanism of the Cipher. It was necessary to 
use some words many times over; but it would not do to pepper the 
text with significant words. Hence, such words as shake and speare 
and //<r?>'.f and vohime and suspicion had to be so placed that they would 
sometimes fit the Cipher counting down the column, and sometimes 
fit it counting up the column; and the necessities of this work 
determined the number of words in a column or subdivision of a 
column; and hence the fact, which I have already pointed out, 
that some columns contain nearly twice as many words as others. 

And here I would note that the word please^ in Elizabeth's time, 
was pronounced as the Irish peasant pronounces it to-day, that is to 
say, Qj&plaze; and it will be seen that Bacon uses please to represent 
plays. And very wisely, since the word plays, recurring constantly, 
would certainly have aroused suspicion. The word her was then 
pronounced like hair., even as the Irish brogue would now give it ; 
and, to avoid the constant use of her., in referring to Queen Eliza- 
beth, as her Grace., her Majesty, etc., Bacon uses the word here, which 
also had the sound of hair. This is shown in the pun made by 
Falstaff, in the first part of Henry IV., act i, scene 2, where, speak- 
ing to Prince Hal, he says: 

That were it here apparent, that thou art heir apparent. 

In fact it may be assumed that in that age in England the 
vowels had what might be called the continental sound, that is to 
say, the a had the broad sound of ah, and the e the sound of a. 
Thus, reason was pronounced rayson, as we see in another of Fal- 
staff's puns, which would be unintelligible with the present pro- 
nunciation of the word: 

Give you a ;rrtjc« on compulsion? If rcajowj were as plenty as blackberries, I 
would give no man a reason on compulsion.' 

Here Falstaff antagonizes raisins with blackberries. 

In fact, the Cipher will give us, for the entertainment of the 

' 1st Henry IV., ii, 3. 



654 ^'^^^- CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 

curious, so to speak, a photograph, or rather phonograph, of the 
exact sound of the speech of Elizabeth's age. 

But, having written his internal story and decided upon the 
mechanism of his Cipher, Bacon had to arrange his modifiers so 
that they would enable him to use the same words more than 
once. And it will be seen hereafter that the 50 on the second col- 
umn of page 74 is duplicated by the 50 at the bottom of column 
I of page 76, so that such words as lift Jiim itp, and 7C'ipe his face, 
etc., may be used in describing the keepers caring for the body of 
the wounded Shakspere, and also of the lifting up of the body of 
Bacon after he had taken the poison. 

Now, having constructed his Cipher story, he applies his mechan- 
ism to it, and he determines that in column 2, we will say, of 
page 75, the word menshaXX be the 221st word down the column, and 
the word turned the 221st word up the column; then, in their 
proper places, he puts the words turned, their^ backs, and, fled, in, the, 
greatest, fear, S7vifter, than, arrows, fly, toward, their, aim ; and then he 
constructs that part of the play so that it will naturally bring in 
these words. But as the Cipher words are very numerous, he is 
constrained to describe something in the play kindred to the story 
told by the Cipher. Thus, this flight of the actors is couched in a 
narrative of the flight of Hotspur's soldiers from the battle-field of 
Shrewsbury, after he was slain. And, as Hotspur was Harry Percy 
and Harry Percy was Bacon's servant, whenever there is a necessity 
to name the servant in the interior story, the name of the Earl of 
Northumberland's heroic and fiery son appears in the external 
story. So when the doctor appears, in column i of page 77, to 
prescribe for Bacon, after he took the poison, we have Falstaff tell- 
ing the Chief Justice all the symptoms of apoplexy. 

This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, a sleeping of the blood, a hor- 
son tingling. ... It hath its original from much grief, from study and per- 
turbation of the brain.' 

And a little further down the same column we \\dc^^ disease, physi- 
cian, minister, potion, patient, prescriptions, dram, scruple; all of which 
words, as we will see in the Cipher story, besides sick, and belly, and dis- 
comfort, ^.vlA grozvs, in the same column, and hotter, 2^\^i ratsbane, and 

' 3d Hefiry I!'., i, j. 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 655 

mouth, in the preceding column, are used to tell the story of Bacon's 
sickness and his treatment by the physician. 

In the same way, when Percy visits Stratford and labors with 
Shakspere to induce him to fly to Scotland until the dangers of 
the time are past, Shakspere's wife and daughter being present, 
one aiding Percy and the other opposing him, the story is told in 
scene 3 of act ii of the second part of Hoiry IF., page 81 of the 
Folio; and this short scene is an account of the effort of Northum- 
berland's wife and daughter to persuade ////;/ to fly to Scotland, un- 
til the dangers of the time are past. It must have been very diffi- 
cult to construct this scene, for the shorter the scene the more the 
Cipher words are packed into it, until almost every word is used 
both in the play narrative and the Cipher narrative. 

In the same way it has been noted recently, by some one, that 
the names of the characters in Love's Labor Lost, the scene of which 
is laid in France, are the names of the generals who conducted 
the great war raging in France during Bacon's visit to that country; 
and no doubt there is a Cipher story in this play, relating to these 
historical events, as Bacon perhaps witnessed them, in which it was 
necessary to use the names of these generals; and by this cunning 
device Bacon was able to do so repeatedly without arousing suspi- 
cion. And the name of Armado, the Spaniard, in the same play, 
was doubtless a cover for references to the great Spanish Armada. 
And, as a corroboration of this, we find the word Spain, a rare word 
in the Plays, used twice in Love's Labor Lost, and the word Spaniard 
also used twice in this play, while it occurs but four times in all the 
other plays in the Folio. And the word o-;r<//, which would natur- 
ally be associated with Armada, which was spoken of usually as the 
Great Armada^ occurs in Love's Labor Lost twenty-four times, while in 
the comedy of The Tico Gentlemen of Verona it occurs but seven 
times; in The Merchant of Venice hwX. seven times; and in ^//'.r Well 
that Ends Well but four times. 

XI. How THE Cipher is Worked Out. 

If the reader will turn to page 76 of the facsimiles, being page 
76 of the original Folio, and the third page of the second part of 
King LLenry LV., and commence to count at the bottom of the scene. 



656 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



to-wit, scene second, and count upward, he will find that there are 
just 448 words (exclusive of the bracketed words^ and counting the 
hyphenated words as single words) in that fragment of scene second 
in that column. Now, then, if we deduct 448 from 505, the remaind- 
er is 57, and if he will count down the next column, forward, (second 
of page 76), the reader will find that the 57th word is the word 
her. That is to say, the word her is the 505th word from the end 
of scene second; and the reader will remember that 505 is one of 
the Cipher root-numbers. 

Now, I have stated that one of the modifying numbers was 30. 
Let us take 505 again and deduct 30; the remainder is 475. If, 
instead of starting to count from the end of the second scene in 
the first column of page 76 we count from the end of the first sub- 
division of the corresponding column (one page backward), to-wit, 
the first column of page 75, we will find that in that first subdivision 
there are 193 words; and that number deducted from 505 leaves as 
a remainder 282. Now, if the reader will count down the next col- 
umn forward, just as we did in the former case, he will find that 
the 282d word is Grace; the two countings together making the 
combination " //tv- Grace." Thus: 



I St col., p. 75^ .-^ -^zd col.,p.7,s. 




282 = Grace 




'zd col., p. 76. 



y 

57 -= Her 



Now let us go a step farther. We have seen that Grace was 
produced by deducting from 505 the modifying number 30. The 
other modifying number, in this connection, is 50, to-wit, the num- 
ber of words in the first subdivision of column 2 of page 74 • as 
30 represents the number of words in the last subdivision of the 
same column. We have seen that her was the fifty-seventh word 
in the second column of page 76. Now let us deduct 50 from 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



657 



505, and again start from the same point of departure, the end of 
scene second, second column of page 76: 505 less 50 leaves 455. 
If we deduct from 455 the 448 words in that fragment of the scene, 
we have as a remainder 7; and if we again, as in the former instance, 
count down the next column, we find that the seventh word is the 
word is. (The same result is reached by deducting 50 from that fifty- 
seventh word, her^ the remainder being 7.) Now we have: Her Grace 
is. Her grace is what ? 

Let us go back again to the former starting-point, that 193d 
word in the first column of page 75. We again use the root-num- 
ber 505, but this time we deduct 50 from it, as in the last instance, 
instead of 30, and again we have 455. Now, if we deduct 193 from 
455, or, in other words, if we count the 193 words, the remainder to 
make up 455 is 262; and if we again count down the next column 
forward, the 262d word is the word furious. ^^Her Grace is furious." 
Thus : 














s 




\ 

V 




262 = 




furious 


^^ 




282 = 




Grace 









Here it will be observed that the difference between 57 and 7 is 
50, and the difference between 282 and 262 is 20, the difference be- 
tween 30 and 50. 

But if her Grace is furious, what has she done? 

We have seen that /ler was the 505th word from the end of tTie- 
scene; and grace the 605th word from the beginning of the second 
subdivision of column i of page 75, counting upwards; and is the 
505th word from the end of the scene, less 50; andy'//'r/'6'/('j' the 505th 
word from the beginning of the second subdivision of column i of 
page 75, counting upwards again, less 50. But what is the 505th 
word from the same last-named starting-point ? There are 193 words 



658 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

in column i of page 75 above the said second subdivision: if there- 
fore we deduct 193 from 505, the remainder is 312; that is to say, 
the 312th word in the second column of page 75 is the 505th from 
the top of the second subdivision of column i of page 75. What 
is the 312th word ? Turn to \\\^ fac-siniile of page 75, and you will 
see that the 312th word is sent, in the sentence "and hath sent 
out." But where is the out, which is necessary to make the 
phrase sent out? Again we deduct 50 from 312, and we have left 
262: — 262, you will remember, was, — counting down column 2 of 
page 75, — the word furious. Now let us count 262 words upward 
from the end of scene 2d, just as we did to obtain the words Jier 
and is; and we will find that the 262d word is the 187th word, to- 
wit: out. But there are two words lacking to complete the sen- 
tence, — " Her grace is furious and hath sent out." Where are these? 
If we will again take 312, and count upward from the end of the 
scene, we will find that the 312th word is the 137th word, and; 
and now take the same common root, 505, which has produced 
all these words, but, instead of counting from the beginning of the 
second subdivision of column i of page 75 uptvard, count from 
that point downward: there are 254 words in this second subdivis- 
ion of column i; this deducted from 505 leaves 251. Now sup- 
pose we go again to that end of scene 2, from which we 
derived her, is, and and out, but count downward instead of upward, 
just as we did to get that remainder 251, and the result will be 
that after counting the 50 words in that fragment of scene 3 in 
the first column of page 76, we will have 201 words left, and if we 
go up the preceding column (2d of page 75), we will find that the 
251st word is the word hath, — the 308th word in the second 
column of page 75. Here, then, we have, all growing out of ^0^5, alter- 
nating regularly: 

''''Her Grace is furious and hath sent out." 
Can any one believe that this is the result of accident ? If so, let 
them try to create a similar sentence, in the same way, with num- 
bers not cipher numbers. Take the number 500, for instance, and 
count from the same points of departure, in the same order that 
we have used in the previous instance, and they will have as a result, 
instead of the above coherent sentence, the words: 

Soiv — vail — of — soon — restrain — sent — king — one. 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 659 

Now let the reader, by the exercise of his ingenuity, try to make 
a sensible sentence out of these words, twisting them how he will. 

I do not at this time give the regular narrative, but simply 
some specimens to explain the way in which the Cipher moves. 
The narrative will be given in subsequent chapters. 

Let me give another specimen, growing, in part, out of the same 
starting-points, and being in itself part of the same story. We 
have seen that 505 less 30, one of the modifiers, was 475, and that 
475 less 193, the upper subdivision of column i of page 75, pro- 
duced 282, the word grace. Now let us try the same 475, but count 
down the said first column of page 75, from the same starting-point, 
instead of up. There are 254 words in the second subdivision of 
page 75; 254 deducted from 475 leaves 221, and the 221st word in 
the next column (second of 75) is the word men; and if we count 
up the column it is turned, the 288th word; thus: 

508 

22T 



287 + 1=288. 

But if we recur to the upper subdivision again, that is, if we 
deduct from. 475, 193 instead of 245, we have the same 282 which 
produced grace. But here we come upon another feature of the 
rule which runs all through the Cipher: If the reader will look at 
column I of page 75, he will see that in the upper subdivision 
there are ten words in brackets and five hyphenated words. Now, 
there are four ways of counting the words of the text: (i) Count- 
ing the words of the text, exclusive of the bracket-words, and 
regarding the hyphenated words or double words as one word; (2) 
counting all the words of the text, including the bracket words, and 
treating the hyphenated word as two or three words, as the case 
may be; (3) counting in the bracket-words without the hyphenated 
words, and (4) the hyphenated words without the bracket-words. 
The first two modes of counting were exemplified in the instance 
which I gave in chapter V., page 571, ante, where the words found 
and out were reached by counting first 836 words, in the first 
mode of counting, and then 900 words by the second mode of 
counting; the count departing, as in these instances, from two 
different pages, succeeding each other, to-wit: pages 74 and 75; 
while here it is pages 75 and 76. 



66o 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



If, now, we start with any Cipher number, say, 475, which is 

505 less 30, from the beginning of the second subdivision of the first 

column of page 75, and count upward, we will find that there are to 

the top of the column 193 words, ///^j- 10 words in brackets and 5 

words hyphenated, making a total of 208; and this deducted from 

475 leaves a remainder of 267, instead of 282. And we will find 

that the 267th word, counting dozvii the second column of page 75, 

is the word had. Here we have: '■'■men had turned.'' But if we 

carry that 267 up that column we have 

508 
267 

2414-1 = 242. 

But there are in this count three hyphenated words; if we count 
these in, then the 267th word is the 245th word on the column, 
our. Now we have: ''our men had turned." 

Let us recur again to 505 and again deduct 30, and again we 
have 475 as a remainder; then deduct 193 from it, as before, and 
the remainder is again 282; now let us go to the beginning of the 
next scene, in the first column of page 76; that scene begins with 
the 449th word, and if we count the nunil)er of words beloiv that 
word., we will find there are 49; we deduct 49 from 282 and we have 
left 233, and the 233d word, going down the same column, in 
which all the other words have been found, is the word their. And 
if we recur to the alternating number 221 and go up the same 
column again, but count in the hyphenated words, we have as the 
22ist word, the 290th word, backs. 

Here, then, we have the following: 



505—30=475—254=221 

505—30=475—193=282—15 b & //=267 

505—30=475—254=221 

505—30=475—193=282—49 

505—30=475—254=221 

505—30=475—193=282 







Word. 


Page and 

Column. 


ip the column 


+ /i 


=■245 


75:2 Our 


doivn ' ' 




=221 


75:2 men 


up 




=267 


75:2 had 


doivn ' ' 




=288 


75:2 turned 


«/ 




=233 


75:2 their 


do7vn ' ' 


+ h 


=290 


75:2 backs 


up 


+ h 


=280 


75:2 and 



It will be observed that our, the first word above, was obtained 
by counting in the hyphenated words in the column, as we passed 
over them in the count; this is expressed by the sign " + h ;'' and 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



66i 



the word backs was obtained, also, in the same way; and the word 
and ■wa.s obtained in like manner, and in each case we have this 
represented, as above, by the sign " -|- //. " I would here explain 
that "245 75:2 — our," in the above table, signifies that our is the 
245th word in the second column of page 75; in this way the reader 
can count every word and identify it for himself. 

Observe how regularly the root-numbers alternate, as to their 
movement after leaving the original point of departure, every other 
word going up from the first word of the second subdivision of page 
75, while the intervening words move downward; thus, we have 193 
— 254 — 193 — 254 — 193 — 254 — 193; and hence, counting from these 
points of departure, we have the alternations of up, dozvn, up, down, 
up, down, up. And every word of the sentence begins in the first 
column of page 75 and is found in the second column of page 75; 
and observe also how the numbers of the words alternate: 282 — 
221 — 282 — 221 — 282 — 221 — 282; the sentence is perfectly sym- 
metrical throughout; and every word is the 475th word from pre- 
cisely the same point of departure. 

Can any one believe that this is the result of accident? If so, 
let them produce something like it in some composition where no 
cipher has been placed. 

The above table, presented in a diagram, will appear something 
like this: 



1st cqL,p.7-5 




2 lUl CO 


•.P-75- 










■ r~^ — - 








1 \ 


; -. 


1 \ 


' \ 


</ 1 




men 1, 




had 


1 1 




1 and 


our turned I 


A rf 


1 


1 1 


t&ir 


1 1 


backs 
/' 




/ 
/ 
/ 


' / ' 




' / / 




1 / / 




' : y 









I St col. ,11.76. 




XII. Another Proof of the Cipher. 

And here I would pause for a moment, to call attention to a fact 
which shows the wonderfully complex nature of the Cipher, and 
which deserves to be remembered with that instance, given in 



662 THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 

Chapter V. of Book II., where the same words found and out 
were used, in two different stories, by two different sets of cipher- 
numbers, to-wit: II X 76 ^^836 and 12 X 75 = 900; the same words be- 
ing 836 from two points of departure by excluding the bracketed 
words and counting the hyphenated words as single words, and 900 
from the same points of departure by counting in the bracketed 
words and counting the hyphenated words as double words. 
Now, in the second column of page 75 the 262d word is furious. 
This is a word repeatedly used to describe the rage of the Queen, 
and hence we find the number of words in the column and the 
number of bracketed and hyphenated words cunningly adjusted 
to produce it by several different counts. Thus: 505 — 50=455; 
this, less 193 (the number of words above the second subdivision of 
column I of page 75), makes 262 — furious. But now, if we 
deduct from 262 the 15 bracket and hyphenated words in those 193 
words — in other words, if we count them in — as we have done 
in the other instances given above — we have 247 ; and 247 down the 
page is a very significant word, in connection with the Queen being 
furious, the word fly; but if we count up the column, the 247th 
word is again the same 262d word, furious! And if we take 
another root-number, 516, and deduct 254 from it, that is, count 
down from the top of that same second subdivision in column i 
of page 75, we again have 262, the same word furious. And if 
we go /// the column, instead of down, the 262d word is again that 
significant word, fly. And if we take still another root-number» 
513, and deduct 254 from it, as above, we have as a remainder 259,^ 
and if we carry this down the column we reach the significant word 
prisoner, and if we go up the column, counting in the bracketed 
and hyphenated words, we find that the 259th word is again the 
same 262dword, furious. 

Let the incredulous reader verify these countings, and he will 
begin to realize the tremendous nature of the Cipher, its immen- 
sity and the incalculable difficulty of unraveling it; and he will be 
rather disposed to thank me for the work I have performed, and to 
help me to perfect it, where that work is imperfect, than to meet 
me, as I have been met, with insults and denunciation. 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



XIII. Why Bacon Made the Cipher. 



663 



But the astonished world may ask: Why would any man per- 
form the vast labor involved in the construction of such a Cipher? 
Why, I answer, have men in all ages performed great intellectual 
feats ? What is poetry but fine thoughts invested in a sort of 
cipher-work of words ? To obtain the precise balance of rhythm, 
the exact enumeration of syllables and the accurate accordance of 
rhyme, implies an ingenuity and adaptiveness of mind very much 
like that required to form a cipher; so that, in one sense, a cipher 
work, like the Plays, is a higher form of poetry. And nature itself 
may be said to be a sort of Cipher of which we have not as yet 
found the key. Montaigne says: '* Nature is a species of enig- 
matic poesy." But I may go a step farther, and argue that all 
excessive mental activity, such as Bacon exhibited, even in his 
acknowledged works, is abnormal, and in some respects a depart- 
ure from the sane standard. The normal man is a happy^ well- 
conditioned creature, with good muscles and a sound stomach, 
whose purpose in life is to eat, sleep and raise children, and who 
doesn't care a farthing what anybody may think of him a thousand 
years after his death. Anything above and beyond this is imposed 
on man by the Creator, for his own wise ends. The great geniuses 
of mankind have been simply a long line of heavily-burdened, 
sweating, toiling porters, who bore God's precious gifts to man 
from the spiritual world to the material shore. 

And like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, 
Thou bear'st thy heavy burden but a journey, 
Till death unloads thee. 

But, on the other hand, Bacon probably enjoyed the exercise of 
his own vast ingenuity, just as children enjoy the working-out of 
riddles; just as the musician takes pleasure in the sound of his own 
instrument; just as the athlete delights in the magnificent play of his 
own muscles. And he probably had the Shakespeare Cipher in his 
mind when he said. 

The labor we delight in physics pain; 
and 

To business that we love we rise betime, 
And go to "t with delight. 



664 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

We can imagine him, shut up in the hermitage of St. Albans, 
poor, downcast, powerless; annoyed by debts; the whole force of 
the reigning powers in the state bent to his suppression; with 
every door of possibility apparently closed in his face forever; his 
heart raging within him the while like a caged lion. We can im- 
agine him, I say, rising betimes to go to the task he loved, the 
preparation of the inner history of his times, in cipher, and the crea- 
tion of an intellectual work which, apart from the merits of poetry 
or drama, must, he knew, live forever, when once revealed, as one of 
the supreme triumphs of the human mind; as one of the wonders of 
the world. 

XIV. The Cipher Continued. 

We have worked out the sentence, Om- meti turtied their backs and. 
Let us proceed. 

We have heretofore, in counting down column i, page 75, de- 
ducted 254 words, that being the number of words below the 193d 
word, the end of the' first subdivision in the column. But if we 
count from the first word of the second subdivision there are, below 
that word, in the column, 253 words. We shall see hereafter that 
this subtle distinction, as to the starting-points to count from, runs 
all through the Cipher. Now, if we again take that root-number 
505, and deduct 253, we have as a remainder 252; but if we count 
in the bracket and hyphenated words in that subdivision, (15), we 
will have as a remainder 237; and the 237th word in column 2 of 
page 75 is the word fied, which completes the sentence. Our men 
turned their backs and fled. 

We saw, in the first instance, that her Grace is furious and hath sent 
out; we come now to finish that sentence. What was it she sent 
out? As we have counted downward all the words below the first 
word oi the second subdivision of column i of page 75, so we count 
upwards all the words abo7'e the last word in t\\& first subdivision. 
There are in that first subdivision 193 words; hence 192, the num- 
ber of the words above the last word, becomes, in the progress of 
the Cipher, a modifier, just as we have seen 253 to be. Let us 
again take the root-number 505, from which we have worked out 
thus far all the words given, and after deducting from it the modi- 
fier 50, we have left 455, which, it will be remembered, produced the 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



665 



viords, furious, is, hath and out. If from 455 we deduct 192, we have 
as a remainder 263, and if we carry this up the next column (2d of 
75), we find that the 263d word is tlie 246th word, soldiers. Her 
Graee is furious aud hatJi sent out soldiers. 

Bvit what kind of soldiers ? Up to this point every word has 
flowed out of 505; now, the Cipher changes to 523, the root-num- 
ber which I have said, under certain conditions, alternated with 
505. Again we deduct the number 192, (which produced jv^MVv-i-), 
from 523, and we have as a remainder 331; we carry this up the 
next column, as usual, and the 331st word is the 178th woxiS., troops. 
Again we take 505 and go down the column, instead of up, that is, 
we deduct 254, as in the former instances, and we have as a re- 
mainder 251; or if we count in the bracket and hyphenated words, 
236; we go up the second column of page 75, and the 236th word is 
of, the 273d word in the column. Here, then, we have: Her Graee is 
furious and hath sent out troops of soldiers, and Our men turned their 
backs and fled. 

Now we turn again to the interlocking number 523, and, after de- 
ducting the modifier 50, Avhich leaves 473, counting up the column, 
we have as a remainder 280, or, counting in the bracketed and hy- 
phenated words, which formerly produced hath [hath turned), and the 
265th word is the word laell, the first part of the hyphenated word 
well-laboring; but as the 265th was obtained by counting in the 
hyphenated words in 193, we therefore count the hyphenated words 
separately, and that gives us ivell. Now, if we count 505 from the 
beginning of scene 3, column i, page 76, down the 50 words in 
that fragment of scene, and forward and down the next column, 
we find the 505th word to be the 455th word in the second column 
of page 86, to-wit, the word horsed. Here, then, we have sent out 
troops of soldiers well horsed. In that day they used the word horsed 
where we would employ the expression tnounted; thus, Macbeth 

speaks of 

Pity, like a naked, new-born babe, 
Horsed on the sightless couriers of the air. 

And at the top of the first column of page 75 we have: 

My lord, Sir John Umfreville turned me back 
With joyful tidings; and (being better /lorsi-I) 
Out-rode me. 



666 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

But how did our men fly ? We have seen that 505 minus 30 pro- 
duced 475, and this minus 254 left 221, and that 221, down the sec- 
ond column of page 75, was men, and up the same column was 
turned {our men turned their backs'). Now let us carry 221 up the same 
column again, but count in the bracketed and hyphenated words 
in the space we pass over, and we will find that the 221st word is 
the 296th word, ///. Again let us take 505, deduct 193, and we have 
left 312; now let us go again to the beginning of the next scene, 
as we did to find the word their, and deduct, as before, 49, carry- 
ing the remainder (263) up the second column of page 75, but 
counting in the three additional hyphenated words, and we will 
find the 263d word to be the 249th word from the top, the. Again 
let us recur to 505, and, counting down the same first column of 
page 75, from the usual starting-point, 254 words, we have left as 
before 251 words; or, counting in the bracketed and hyphenated 
words, 236; and if we count down the next column, counting in 
the bracketed words, the 236th word is the 216th word, greatest. 
And if we again take 505, and count up from the end of the first 
subdivision of the first column of page 75, counting in the brack- 
eted and hyphenated words, as we did in the last instance, we 
have 297, which carried down the next column produces the word 
fear. 

505—30=475—254=221 . 508—221 -hi&/toncol.= 
505— 1 93— 31 2— 49=263— 508— 263 + h= 

505 254=251—15 l> & 7^=236—20 (5=216. 

505 193=312—15 /> & //=297. 

Observe again the symmetry of this sentence: it all grows out 
of 505; it is all found in the second column of page 75; the count 
all begins at the same point in the first column of page 75, and it 
regularly alternates: 254 — 193 — 254 — 193; — 221 — 312 — 251 — 
312; two words go up the column together, and two words go 
down the column together. Can any one believe that this is the 
result of accident ? 

We now have: Our pten turned their backs and fled in the greatest fear. 

We go a step farther. We recur to the interlocking number 
523 and again deduct from it the modifier 30, which leaves 493; we 
count down from the beginning of the second subdivision, to-wit, 





Page and 




Word. 


Column. 




296 


75:2 


in 


249 


75:2 


the 


216 


75:2 


greatest 


297 


75:2 


fear 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. ' 667 

deduct 254, and we have 239 left; and the 239th word in the next 
column is swifter. We take 523 again, but deduct this time the 
other modifier, 50, instead of 30, and we have 473 left. We count 
up the column, this time, instead of down, and, deducting 193 from 
473, we Rave 280 left, or, counting in the 15 bracketed and hyphen- 
ated words in that first subdivision, we have 265 left (the same 
number that produced well); and this, carried down the next col- 
umn, counting in the bracketed and hyphenated words, produces 
the word then, the 243d word in the second column of page 75. And 
the reader will observe that in the text then is constantly used for 
t/ian. Here, in column 2 of page 74, we have: 

That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim 
T/te7i did our soldiers (aiming at their safety) 
Fly from the field. 

We recur again to 505, and, counting down the column, — that is, 
deducting 254, — we have 251 left, and counting in the 15 bracketed 
and hyphenated words, we have 236 words left; we go down the 
next column, and we find that the 236th word is arrows. Again 
we take 505, and deduct the modifier 50, leaving 455, and, alter- 
nating the movement, we go up from the beginning of the second 
subdivision, that is, we deduct 193 from 455, and we have left 262, 
(the number which produced furious). We carry this up the next 
column, and the 262d word is the word fy. And if we again take 
the root-number 523, and count down the first column of page 75, 
that is, deduct 254, we have 269 left; and if we count up the next 
column, this brings us to the word toward, the 240th word. We 
take the root-number 523 again, and, counting up the column, we 
deduct 193, which leaves 330; we carry this down the first column 
of page 76, counting in 18 bracketed and hyphenated words, and 
the 330th word is the 312th word, their. And this illustrates the ex- 
quisite cunning of the adjustment of the brackets and hyphens to 
the necessities of the Cipher: this same 312th word was the word 
their which became part of turned their backs; it resulted from de- 
ducting 193 from the root-number 505, which left 312; now we find 
that 193 deducted from another root-number, 523, leaves 330, and as 
there are precisely 18 bracketed and hyphenated words above it in 
the column, the 330th word lights upon the same 312th word their. 

Thus: 



(568 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

505—193=312 down column 1, page 76 312 76:1 their 

523— 198=330— 18 -^ & // " " " " " 312 76:1 their 

One has but to compare this with the marvelous adjustments 
shown on pages 571, 572 and 573, ante.^ whereby the same words, 
fomid and out, are made to do double duty, by two different modes 
of counting, (the difference between 836 and 900, the two root-num- 
bers employed, being precisely equal, as in this case, to the number 
of bracketed and hyphenated words in the text, between the 
words themselves and the starting-point of the count), to realize 
the extraordinary nature of the compositions we call the Shake- 
speare Plays. 

And observe again, in this last group of words, how regularly 
254 and 193 alternate: 254—193 — 254 — 193 — 254 — 193; and 
two groups of 523 each alternate with two groups of 505 each, 
thus: 523, 523, 505, 505, 523, 523, 505. 

But to continue: We recur to 505 again; deduct from it again 
the modifier 30; this leaves us 475; deduct from this 193 plus the 
bracketed and hyphenated words inclosed in the 193 words, and we 
have left 267; we advance up the next column, and the 267th word 
is the 242d word, aim. 

Here, then, we have the sentence: 

Our men turned their backs and fled in the greatest fear, swifter than 
arrows fly toward their aim. . 

I might go on and fill out the rest of the narrative, but that will 
be done in a subsequent chapter. This at least will explain the 
mode in which the Cipher is worked out. 

While it may be objected that I have not the different para- 
graphs in their due and exact order in the sentences I have given, 
or may give, hereafter, no reasonable man will, I think, doubt that 
these results are not due to accident; that there is a Cipher in the 
Plays, and a Cipher of wonderful complexity. And I shall hope 
that the ingenuity of the world will perfect any particulars in 
which my own work may be imperfect; even as the complete work- 
ing-out of the Egyptian hieroglyphics was not the work of any 
one man, or of any half-dozen men, or of any one year, or of any 
ten years. 

There is, of course, a species of incredulity which will claim 
that all this wonderful concatenation of coherent words is the 



THE CIPHER EXPLAINED. 



669 



result of chance; just as there was a generation, a century or two 

ago, which, when the fossil forms of plants and animals were first 

noticed in the rocks, (misled by a preconceived notion as to the age 

of the earth), declared that they were all the work of chance; that 

the plastic material of nature took these manifold shapes by a series 

of curious accidents. And when they were driven, after a time, 

from this position, the skeptics fell back on the theory that God 

had made these exact imitations of the forms of living things, and 

placed them in the rocks, to perplex and deceive men, and rebuke 

their strivings after knowledge. 

With many men the belief in the Stratford player is a species of 

religion. They imbibed it in their youth, with their mother's milk, 

and they would just as soon take the flesh off their bones as the 

prejudices out of their brains. Ask them for any reason, apart 

from the Plays and Sonnets, (the very matters in controversy), why 

they worship Shakspere; ask them what he ever did as a man that 

endears him to them; what he ever said, in his individual capacity, 

that was lofty, or noble, or lovable; and they are utterly at loss for 

an answer; there is none. Nevertheless they are ready to die for 

him, if need be, and to insult, traduce and vilify every one who 

does not agree with them in their unreasoning fetish worship. It 

reminds me of an observation of Montaigne: 

How many have been seen patiently to suffer themselves to be burnt and 
roasted for opinions taken upon trust from others, and by them not at all under- 
stood. I have known a hundred and a hundred women (for Gascony has a certain 
prerogative for obstinacy) whom you might sooner have made eat fire than forsake 
an opinion they had conceived in anger. 

And a remarkable feature, not to be overlooked, is, that not 
only do a few numbers produce some of the twenty-nine words in 
these sentences, but they produce them all. Thus nearly all come 
out of 505, towards the last intermixed with 523; and we derive 
from 312 sent, out, soldiers, fly, furious, fear, their; while from 221 we 
get men, turned, backs, in; and 251 gives greatest, arrows, etc. It 
seems to me that if the reader were to write down these words, just 
as I have given them, and submit them to any clear-headed person, 
and tell him they were parts of a story, he would say that they evi- 
dently all related to some narrative in which soldiers were sent out, 
that somebody was furious, and some other parties were in the 
greatest fear and had turned their backs to fly. 



CHAPTER IV. 

BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news 
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue 
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell 
Remembered knolling a departing friend. 

ad Heujy IV., /, 2. 

THE Cipher grows out of a series of root-numbers. Before we 
reach that part of the story which is told by the root-numbers 
505, 513, 516 and 523, there is a long narrative which leads up 
to it, and which is told by another series of numbers, which grow 
in due and regular order out of the primal root-number, which is 
the parent of 505, 513, 516 and 523. They start at "77/i? Heart of 
the Mystery^' the dividing line between the first and second parts of 
Henry IV. and progress in regular order, forward and backward, 
moving steadily away from that center, as the narrative proceeds, 
until they exhaust themselves on the first page of the first part 
and the last page of the second part of the play. Then the primal 
number is put through another arithmetical progression, and we 
reach the numbers I have named, 505, 513, 516 and 523, and 
these give us that part of the story which is now being worked out. 
And to tell that story we begin, properly, with the very beginning, 
at " The Heart of the Mystery^' in the first column of the second 
part of the play of King Henry IV. 

And here I would observe that as the Cipher flows out of the first 
column of page 74 its mode of progression is different from the 
Cipher referred to in the last chapter, for that grew out of the first 
column of page 75, which is broken into two parts by the stage 
direction ''■Enter Morton;'" and hence the root-numbers were mod- 
ified at one time by subtracting the upper half, and at another time 
by subtracting the lower half; that is to say, by counting up from 

670 



BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 671 

''Enter Morton,'' or counting down. But the tirst column of page 
74 has no such break in it; it is solid; and hence the root-numbers 
sooner exhaust themselves. And this perhaps was rendered neces- 
sary by the fact tiiat there are but 248 words in the second column 
of page 74, while there are 508 words in the second column of page 
75. There would have been great difficulty in packing as many 
Cipher words into 248 words as into 508 words. Hence the dif- 
ferent Cipher numbers interlock with each other more frequently, 
and in a short space we find all the Cipher numbers (except 506, 
which has a treatment peculiar to itself and apart from the others) 
brought into requisition. 

The former Cipher numbers, to which I have alluded, ended 
with some brief declaration from Harry Percy of the evil tidings; 
and the first words spoken by Bacon are based on the hope that 
there may be some mistake, that the news may not be authentic. 
He inquires: '' Saw you the Earl 2 How is this derived V "The Earl," 
of course, means the Earl of Essex, and the head of the conspiracy. 
And here I would also explain, that just as we sometimes modified 
505 and 523, in the examples given in the last chapter, by counting 
the words above the first word oi the second subdivision of column i 
of page 75, to-wit, 193; and sometimes the words above the last word 
of \.\\e. first subdivision, to-wit, 192: so with this first column of page 
74, if we count down the column there are 284 words, exclusive of 
bracketed and the additional hyphenated words, but if we count up 
the column we will find that the number of words above the last word 
of the column is but 283, exclusive of bracketed words and the ad- 
ditional hyphenated words. And this the reader will perceive is a 
necessary distinction, otherwise counting up and down the column 
would produce the same results; and as the Cipher runs from the begin- 
nings and ends of scenes, and as the "Induction'' is in the nature of a first 
scene (for the next scene is called "Scena Secunda "), it follows that 
we must adopt the same rule already shown to exist as to 193, 254, 
etc., and which we will see hereafter runs all through the Cipher, 
in both plays. And these subtle distinctions not only show the 
microscopic accuracy of the work, but illustrate at the same time 
the difficulty of deciphering it. 

I place at the head of the column the root-numbers and their 



672 ' THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

modifications; and the reader will note that every word of the co- 
herent narrative which follows is derived from one or the other of 
these numbers, modified by the same modifiers, 30 and 50, which 
we found so effective on page 75, together with the other modifiers, 
197, 198, 218 and 219, which are also found, as we have already ex- 
plained, in the second column of page 74. 

I would also call attention to the fact that just as we, in the pre- 
ceding chapter, sometimes counted in the bracketed and additional 
hyphenated words in the subdivisions of column i of page 75, and 
sometimes did not: so in this case, sometimes we count in the brack- 
eted and additional hyphenated words in column i of page 74, and 
sometimes we do not. And as in the former instance we indicated 
it by the marks " — 15 ^&//," there being 15 bracketed and hyphen- 
ated words in both those subdivisions, so in the following examples 
we indicate it by the marks " — 18 b &//," there being 18 bracketed 
and additional hyphenated words in column i of page 74. Where 
the figures '21 b'' or ^'' 22 b & h" occur, they refer to the brack- 
eted words or the bracketed and additional hyphenated words in 
the same column in which the words are found. 

I would call attention to the significant words in the narrative 
that flow out of the modifiers; for instance, 523 — 284=239, from; 
less 50== 1^^, gentle maft; less 30= 209 — 21 b= 188, a; less 30= 158, 
whoi/i; 505 — 284=221, I; less 50 = 171, derived; less 30=191, bred; 
505 — 284 = 221 — 2\ b in column =200, these; 523 — 284=239 — 
21 b in column = 2i8, news; while 523 — 283 = 240, me; — 50^ 
190, well; — 30=210, /. Here in two root-numbers, alternated 
with the modifiers 50 and 30, we produce the significant words: 
/, derived^ these, netvs,froni, a, 7vell, bred, gentleman, zvhom, I. Surely, 
all this cannot be accidental? 

Suppose instead of these root-numbers, 505 and 523, we take 
any other numbers, say 500 and 450, and apply them in the same 
way, and in the same order, as in the above sentence; and we will 
have as a result the following words: came, the, a, name, listen, you, 
fortunes, Afonmouth, the, that, after. Not only do these words make 
no sense arranged in the same order as in the above coherent sen- 
tence, but it is impossible to make sense out of them, arrange them 
how yovi will. You might put together: after that Monmouth came; 



BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 



673 



but the remaining words will puzzle the greatest ingenuity; and 
then comes the question: Who is Monmouth, and what has he to 
do with any story that precedes or follows this? But 505, 523, 
etc., not only produce a coherent narrative on this page, but on 
all the other pages examined, and the story on one page is a part of 
the story on all the other pages. 

I. The Narrative. 



533 


523 


516 


516 


513 


513 


505 


505 


284 


283 


284 


283 


284 


283 


284 


283 



239 



240 



232 



233 



229 



230 



221 



222 



Page and 



523—284=239—51=188—20 1> & /i=im. 

505-284=221—51=170-1 /^=169. 

523—284=239—50=189—19 /'=170. 

505— 284=221— 50=1 7 1 . 

523—283=240—18 /' & //=222— 50=172. 

505— 283=222— 30=1 92— 1 9=1 73. 

523—283=240. 248—240=8+1=9. 

505—284=221—167=54. 

523—284=239—7 /t (74:1)=232. 

505—284=221. 

523—284=239—18 /? & h (74:1)=221— 50=171. 

505—284=221—21 /;=200. 

523—284=239—21 /;=218. 

505—284=221—219=2. 248—2=246+1=247. 

523—284=239—30=209—21 /;=188. 

523— 283=240— 50=1 90. 

505—284=221—30=191. 

523—284=239—50=189. 

505—283=222—29=193. 

523—284=239—18 b & /^=221— 50=171. 248—171= 

77+1=78+15=93. 
505—284=221—167=54. 248—54=194+1=195 
523—284=239—30=209. 
505—284=221—18 h & //=203— 19 /;=184. 
523—284=239—18 i & /^=221— 1 //=220. 
505—284=221—218=3. 
523—284=239. 248—239=9+1=10. 
516—284=232—21 ^=211. 
513—283=230—50=180—19=161. 
516—284=232. 248—232=16 + 1=17. 
523—283=240. 248—240=8 + 1=9 + 30=39. 
523—284=239. 248—239=9+1=10+30=40. 
505—284=221—168=53. 



Word. 


Column. 




168 


74:2 


How 


169 


74:2 


is 


170 


74:2 


this 


171 


74:2 


derived ? 


172 


74:2 


Saw 


173 


74:2 


you 


9 


74:2 


the 


54 


74:2 


Earl? 


232 


74:2 


No, 


221 


74:2 


I 


171 


74:2 


derived 


200 


74:2 


these 


218 


74:2 


news 


247 


74:2 


from 


188 


74:2 


a 


190 


74:2 


well 


191 


74:2 


bred 


189 


74:2 


gentleman 


193 


74:2 


of 


93 


74:2 


good 


195 


74:2 


name 


209 


74:2 


whom 


(184) 


74:2 


my 


220 


74:2 


lord 


3 


74:2 


the 


10 


74:2 


Earl 


211 


74:2 


sent 


161 


74:2 


to 


17 


74:2 


tell 


39 


74:2 


your 


40 


74:2 


Honor 


53 


74:2 


the 



674 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



201 


74:2 


news. 


47 


74:2 


He 


329 


74:2 


is 


20 


75:1 


a 


207 


74:2 


servant 



This i6S is the middle subdivision of column 2 of page 74. It runs from 50 to 
218. as is shown in the diagram, on page 580, ante; it contains 21 bracketed words 
and one additional hyphenated word; its modifications will appear further on. From 
50 to 218 there are 168 words; from 51 to 218 there are 167. 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505—283=222—21 /'=201. 

516—584=232—80=202. 248—202=46+1=47. 
513=284=229. 

505—283=222—198=24—4 b + ^=20. 
513_284=229— 22 b & //=207. 

The word servant had anciently the sense of follower or subordinate. Hora- 
tio, although a gentleman, and a scholar with Hamlet at Wittenberg, called him- 
self the servant of Hamlet: 

Hamlet. Horatio, or do I forget myself? 

Horatio. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. 

Hamlet. Sir, my good friend, 

I'll change that name with you. 

516— 284=232— 18/' &//=214— 2] /'=193. 193 74:2 of 

505—284=221—30=191. 193—191=2 + 1=3. 3 75:1 Sir 

Here the Cipher, as it begins to exhaust the possibilities of column 2 of page 
74, overflows upon the next column through the channel of the subdivisions of 74:2. 
That is to say, instead of counting 221 down that column, we commence to count 
at the bottom of the second subdivision. This gives us to the bottom of the column 
thirty words, which, deducted from the 221, leaves us 191, and this, carried up from 
the bottom of the first subdivision of the next column, gives us the word Sir. 

523—283=240—50=190. 193—190=3+1=4. 

505—284=221—30=191—30=161. 

505—283=222—198=24. 

The 198 here is one of the modifiers in the second column of page 74; that is 
to say, from the top of the second subdivision of the column to the top of the col- 
umn there are 50 words, and from the bottom of the first subdivision to the bottom 
of the column there are 198 words; and from the top of the second column to the 
bottom of the column there are 197 words. 



4 


75:1 


John 


161 


75:1 


Travers, 


24 


75:1 


by 



516—284=232—18 b & 7^=214. 248—214=34+ 1=35. 35 

516—284=232—30=202—7 //=195. 195 

516—284=233—50=183. 248—183=60. 66 

523—284=239—50=189. 193—189=4+1=5. 5 



74:2 the 

74:2 name 

74:2 of 

75:1 Umfreville. 



This 189 is the middle subdivision 168 plus the 2i bracketed words contained 



therein, making together 189. 

513—283=230—2 //=228. 
513—284=229. 
513—273=230. 

516—284=232—30=202—20 b & 7^=182. 
516—283=233—50=183. 248—183=65+1= 
66+15/^=81 



228 
229 
230 
182 

81 



74:2 He 

74:2 is 

74:2 furnished 

74:2 with 



74:2 



all 



BACON HEARS THE BAD NEIVS. 



675 



Word. 

516—283=233—50=183—19 /;=174. 174 

516—283=233 233 

516— 283=233— 30-=203. 248—203=45+1=46 46 

516—283=233—30=203—50=153. 248—153=95+1= 96 
513_384=229— 30=199. 248—199=49+1=50. 50 

516—284=232—30= 202 202 

516—283=233—30=203—248—203=43+1=46+2 //= 48 
516—284=232—30=202—197=5. 18 ^ & /^ —5= 

13-^-1=14. 14 



Page and 
Column. 

84:2 


the 


74:2 


certainties, 


74:2 


and 


74:2 


will 


74:2 


answer 


74:2 


for 


74:2 


himself, 



74:1 



when 



This last count needs a little explanation. In the former instances there was 
always, after counting in all the words in column i of page 74, a remainder 
which was carried over to the next column, or, through the subdivision in the 
second column of page 74, overflowed into the first column of page 75. But sup- 
pose there is, after deducting the modifier, no remainder to be thus carried to the next 
column, then we must look for the word in the first column of page 74, by moving 
up or down that column. And this is what is done in this instance. I might state 
the matter thus: 516 — 30=486 — 197^289. Now, we are about to carry 289 up the 
first column of page 74; but there are 18 b & h in that column, which added to 284 
makes a total in the column of words of all kinds of 302; — now, if we deduct 288 
from 302 we have \i-\-\=ii\=ivhcn. We find the same course pursued to obtain 
the word of on the eighth line below. 

505—283=222—198=24. 193—24=169+1=170. 
505—284=221. 248—221=27+1=28+24 ^+/^=52. 
505—284=221. 248—221=27 + 1=28. 
523—284=239—218=21. 248—21=227+1=228. 
513—284=229—198=31. 
505—283=222—1 98=24 + 4 /' + /^=20. 
523—284=239—218=21. 
516—284=232—30=202—18 /'+ A=184— 198=14. 

284—14=270—1 + 3 //=274. 
516—384=232—30=202=197=5. 248—5=243+1= 
516—284=232—30=202—7 h (74:1)=195. 
505—283=222—30=192. 

505—284=221—168=53. 248—53=195+1=196+1 ^=197 
505—284=221—168=53—248—53=195+1=196 

+2/' + 7^=198. 
523—283=240. 

505—283=222—22 /; + ;/=200. 
523—283=240—22 -^+7^=218. 
505—284=221—167=54—7 h 284=47. 248—47= 

201 + 1=202. 
505—284=221—18 b & /4=203. 

505— 28:3=222— 197=25. 193—25=168+1=169. 
505—283=222—197=25. 193+25=218. 

We have just seen that the root-number was carried upward from the top of 
the second subdivision in column 2 of page 74 and thence to the next column. 
Here we see that the root-number is also carried downward from the same point, 
by deducting 197, the number of words from that point to the bottom of the column. 



170 


75:1 


he 


52 


74:2 


comes 


28 


74:2 


here. 


a28 


74:2 


He 


31 


74:2 


is 


20 


75:1 


a 


21 


74:2 


gentleman 


274 


74:1 


of 


244 


74:2 


good 


195 


74:2 


name, 


192 


74:2 


and 


=197 


74:2 


freely 


198 


74:2 


rendered 


240 


74:2 


me 


200 


64:2 


these 


218 


74:2 


news 


202 


74:2 


for 


203 


74:2 


true. 


169 


75:1 


He 


318 


75:1 


left 



676 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




214 


75:1 


the 


213 


75:1 


Strand 


15 


75:1 


after 


25 


75:1 


me, 


246 


75:1 


but, 


(13) 


75:1 


being 



533—284=239—218=21. 193+21=214. 
523—284=239—218=21. 193+21=214—2 /i=212. 
523—284=239—30=209—30=179. 193—179= 
14+1=15. 

505—283=222—197=25. 

505— 284=221— 18 <^& /^=203— 50=153+193=346. 

505—284=221—30=191. 193—191=2 + 1=3+/^= 

Here we come to an example that is often found in the Cipher, where the count 
ends in a word in a bracketed sentence. It is difficult to explain in figures the re- 
sult; the critical reader will have to count for himself up or down the column, as 
the case may be, and he will ascertain that my count is correct. Where the 
number of the word is inclosed in brackets, as in the above " (13) 75:1," it signi- 
fies that it is not the 13th word by the ordinary count, but the 13th word counting 
in the words in a bracketed sentence, and that the word itself is in such a sentence. 



523—283=240—50=190. 193— 190=3+1=4+^.= (14) 



75:] 



better 



The accuracy of this count can only be demonstrated by counting from 193, 
inclusive, upwards, counting in the bracketed words, but not the hyphenated words; 
and the 190th word will be found to be, by actual count, the word better. 



523—284=239- 


50—189. 193 189—4+1—5+/;— 


(15) 


75:1 


horsed. 


505 283—222. 




332 


74:3 


over-rode 


505—284=221- 


-22 ^& 7^=199. 


199 


74:3 


me. 


505—284=221- 


-168=53—7/^=46. 


46 


74:2 


He 


523—284=239- 


-218=21—4=17. 


17 


75:1 


came 


523—284=239- 


-318=31— 3 /'=18. 


18 


75:1 


spurring 


505—384=331- 


198—23 4 ^ & //— 19. 


19 


75:1 


head. 


533—384=339- 


50—189 50—139. 193 139—54+ 








1—55. 




55 


75:1 


and 


505 384—231 


-50=171. 193—171=22+1=33. 


33 


75:1 


stopped 


533 383—340 


-50=190—30=160. 


160 


75:1 


by 


505—384=331- 


-319=2. 447— 2+//=(446). 


(446) 


75:1 


me 


505 384—331 


-50=171. 193—171=22+1=23+3^^ 


= 36 


75:1 


to 


505—384=331- 


50—171. 193—171—22+1—23+ 








3^&l/^exc.=37. 


37 


75:1 


breathe 



Here we count in the bracketed words and the additional hyphenated words 
not included in bracket sentences. This is indicated by the sign " /;& h exc," mean- 
ing, count in the bracket words and the hyphenated words exclusive of those in 
brackets. The expression "came spurring head" means came spurring with 
headlong speed. It was the customary expression of the day and is found in the 
text. 

505—383=222—50=172. 193—172=21 + 1=23+ 

6 /; & 7^=28. 
523—284=239—30=309—30=1 79. 
51 6— 383=333— 50=1 83 . 
516—383=333—50=183+ 193=376. 
513—383=230—30=200—15 b & /4=185. 
513—283=330—50=180. 
533—383=340—30=310. 



88 


75:1 


his 


179 


75:1 


horse, 


183 


75:1 


Upon 


376 


75:1 


my 


185 


75:1 


life 


180 


75:1 


he 


210 


75:1 


looks 



BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 



677 



505—283=222—30=192. 
523—283=240—30=210—10 -5+2 k exc.=198. 
505—283=222—50=172. 
505—284=221—18 b & 7^=203—30=173. 
523_284=239— 219=20. 193—20=173+1=174. 
516—284=232—50=182—14 i> & //==168. 
523—283=240—50=190—14 /> & /^=176. 
505—284=221—30=191—14 d & 7^=177. 
51 6— 283=233— 30=203 
523—284=239—50=189 —10-5=179. 

523—283=240—50=190 —10/5=180. 

505—284=221—30=191 _ 10/;=181. 

51&-283=233— 30=203— 30=173— 10^=163. 
523—283=240—30=210 —10 /;=200. 

505—283=222—198=24 — 3<5=21. 

623—283=239—30=309—30=179—10-5=169. 



Wor-j. 


Page an<3 
Column. 




192 


75:1 


more 


198 


75:1 


like 


172 


75:1 


some 


173 


75:1 


hilding 


174 


75:1 


fellow 


168 


75:1 


who 


176 


75:1 


had 


177 


75:1 


stolen 


203 


75:1 


the 


179 


75:1 


horse 


180 


75:1 


he 


181 


75:1 


rode-on 


163 


75:1 


than 


200 


75:1 


a 


21 
169 


75:1 
75:1 


gentleman; 
he 



Observe here how a whole series of words has in each case the mark "10 -5," 
showing that the brackets have been counted in in every instance; while above it is 
a group of words marked "14 -5 & /i," where both the bracketed words and the 
additional hyphenated words have in each case been counted in. The 10 -5 is only 
varied, in the first series, once, where it becomes " 3 />," because there are but 
three bracketed words before the Cipher word is reached, while in the other cases 
there are 10. 



516—284=232—30=202. 447—202=245+1=246. 246 

523—284=239—50=189. 189 

523—284=239—30=209. 209 

513—284=229—50=179. 447—179=268+1=269+8-5 277 
516—283=233—30=203—30=173. 447—173=274+ 

1=275. 275 



75:1 


doth 


75:1 


look 


75:1 


so 


75:1 


dull, 



75:1 spiritless 



I would here call attention to another curious fact. We see in the above that 
173, counting down the column, is hilding (or skulking — hiding), while up the 
column it is spiritless, — the 275th word; — and if we count in the bracket words it 
is 7voe-begone. While we will find hereafter that when we take 523 and count from 
the top of the second column of page 74, downwards, 248 words, we have 275 words 
left, and the 275th word is the same word, spiritless, and if we go up the column it 
is the same word, hilding. This is another of the many proofs, like " fottiul-oiit," 
that the words are many times cunningly adjusted to do double duty. 

513—283=230—30=200—30=170. 193+170=363. 363 75:1 and 

616—283=233—30=203—30=173. 447—173=274+1 

=275+8-5=283. 
523—284=239—30=209—30=179-17^=178. 
513—284=229—50= 1 79. 
523—283=240—30=210—30=180, 
523—284=239—30=209—50=159. 
523—284=239—50=189—50=139. 
523—284=239—50=189—50=139. 193—139= 54 

+ 1=55+6 l> & /-=61 61 75:1 was 



283 


75:1 


woe-begone 


178 


75:1 


The 


179 


75:1 


horse 


180 


75:1 


he 


159 


75:1 


rode 


139 


75:1 


upon 



678 



jnE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Word. 



Page and 
Column, 



193—179=14+ 



193—139= 
-180=13+ 

-159=288+ 



(23) 
55 

(22) 

297 
383 

45 



75.1 
75:1 
75:1 

75:1 

75:1 

75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 

75:1 



sore-spent 
and 

almost 

half 
dead 

from 
spurring. 

My 

instinct 

tells 

me 

some 

thing 

is 

•wrong. 



523—284=289-30=209-30=179. 

1=15+8 /'=(23). 
523— 284=239— 50=189— 50 (74:2)=139. 

54+1=55. 
523—283=240—30=210—30=180. 193- 

1=14+8 /;=(22). 
523—284=239—30=209—50=159. 447- 

1=289^8/^=297. 
523—283=240—50=190. 193+190=383. 
513—284=229—50=179—30=149. ' 193—149= 

44 + 1=45. 
516—283=238—50=183. 193—183=10+1=11 + 7/^= 18 
523—283=240—50=190—50=140—10 <^=1 30. 130 

523—284=239- 30=209. 194+209=403. 403 

513—284=229—218=11. 193+11=204— 2 //=202. 202 
513—283=230—198=32—22=10. 447—10=437+1= 438 
516— 284=232— 50=182— 10 /;=1 72. 172 

516—283=233—30=203. 193+203=396. 396 

523—284=239-50=189. 193+189=382. 382 

513—283=230—198=32—22 (^=10. 447—10=437+ 

1=438+2 /'=440. 440 

Here the " 22 ^ " represents the 22 bracketed words in the 198; that is, from the 
end of the first subdivision of column 2 of page 74 to the bottom of the column there 
are 22 words in brackets. 

513—283=230—30=200—30=170. 
513—283=230—198=32. 
513—283=230—218=12. 447—12= 

2 /;=438. 
513—283=230—30=200—30=170- 

1=157. 
523—284=239—198=41—7 /'=34. 
523—283=240—50=1 90. 
51 3— 283=230— 2 1 8=12. 
505—283=222—198=24. 447—24= 

Here we begin to call into requisition the modifiers in the first column of page 
73; heretofore, the modifiers we have used have been altogether those in the second 
column of page 74; hereafter, in this part of the story, we will find those of the 
first column of page 73 coming more and more into use, until all the words grow 
out of 505, 523, 516 and 513, less 284, modified by the modifying numbers in col- 
umn I of page 73, to-wit, 28, 62, go, 142 and 79. 

The reader is asked to observe that every one of the last seventy-five words is 
found in the first column of page 75, while the preceding part of the story was all 
found in the second column of page 74; and the reader can see for himself that this, 
part of the story follows the other in natural historical order. 

523—284=239—198=41—9 h & //=32. 32 

516—283=233—50=183—28=155. 193—155=38+1= 39 
513—283=280—30=200. 193+200=393—8 ^=385. 885 
513—283=230—50=180. 180 

523—284=239—50=189. 447—189=258+1=259. 259 





170 


75:1 


He 




32 


75:1 


asked 


435+1=436+ 










438 


75:1 


me 


14 (J & 7^=156+ 










157 


75:1 


the 




34 


75:1 


way 




190 


75:1 


here; 




12 


75:1 


and 


423 + 1=424. 


424 


75:1 


I 



75:1 


asked 


75:1 


him 


75:1 


what 


75:1 


he 


75:1 


is 



BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 



679 



513_284=229— 21 8=1 1 . 
513—283=230—30=200- 
516—284=232—50=182. 
505—283=222—30=192. 
518—283=230—50=180. 
51 6— 283=233— 50=1 83- 
513—284=229—218=11. 
523—284=239—1 98=41 . 
528—283=240—50=190- 

1=348. 
505—283=222—50=172. 

10 /; & 7^=286. 



Word. 
447—11=4864-1=487. 437 

-10 /'=190. 190 

193—182=11 + 1=12. 12 

193+192=385 385 

193+180=373. 873 

-90=93. 193—93=100+1=101 

11 
447—41=406+1=407. 407 

-90=100. 447—100=347+ 

348 
447—173=275+1=276+ 

286 



Pagre and 
Column. 




75:1 


doing 


75:1 


here, 


75:1 


and 


75:1 


what 


75:1 


are 


75:1 


the 


75:1 


tidings 


75:1 


from 



75:1 



the 



75:1 Curtain? 



The "Curtain Play-house" was probably the meeting-place of Harry Percy, 
Umfreville and the other young men. To Percy it must have been a regular resort, 
for it is probable he was the intermediary between Bacon and Shakspere. 



505— 284=221— 50=1 71— 90=81— 50=31 . 31 
516—284=232—30=202—50=152. 193—152=41 + 

1=42+6/; & /;=48. 48 

516—284=232—30=202. 193—202=6+1=7. 7 



75:1 

75:1 
75:1 



He 

told 
me 



This needs a little explanation: it is difficult to state it in figures in the same 
way as the other examples. We have 202 to carry up the first subdivision of 75:1, 
but there are only 193 words in that subdivision, which would leave a remainder of 
9; but suppose we add in the /' & h words, we then have in the subdivision not 193 
but 193 + 15=208; now if we deduct 202 from 208, we have: 208 — 202^6+1=7. 
75:1, iiii\ as above. 



523—284=289- 
505—283=222— 

52=245—2= 
505—284=221— 
518—284=229— 
516—284=232- 
505—284=221- 
505—283=222— 
505—283=222- 
505—284=221— 
513—284=229- 

1=65+1 //= 
505—283=222- 

3 /;=25. 
523—283=240- 
516—283=233- 



50=189—62=127. 127 

50=172—90=82=30—52. 193+ 
=243. 243 

50=171—90=81—30=51. 193+51=244 
50=179—50=129—10 /;=119. 119 

50=182—62=120. 120 

50=171—50=121. 121 

50=172—50=122. 122 

-50=172-50=122. 193—122=71 + 1= 72 
-50=171—1 //=170. 170 

-50=179—50=129. 193—129=64+ 
=66. 66 

•50=172. 193—172=21 + 1=22+ 

25 
-80=210—198=12. 193+12=205—2//. 203 
-30=203—10 6=193. 198 



75:1 



that 



75:1 


our 


75:1 


party 


75:1 


had 


75:1 


met 


75:1 


ill 


75:1 


luck; 


75:1 


and 


75:1 


he 



75:1 



gave 



75:1 


me 


75:1 


the 


75:1 


news 



We return now to the second column of page 74, and we learn what the news 
was that Percy received from Umfreville. And here we have a testimony to the 
reality of the Cipher which should satisfy the most incredulous. 

The reader will remember that I gave on page 580, ante, a diagram of what I 
called T/it' Heart of the Mystery, in which I showed that this part of the Cipher 
originated out of certain root-numbers, 505, 506, 513, 516, 523, modified, first by the 



68o THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

fragments of the scene in the second column of page 74; and, afterward, by the 
fragments in the first column of page 73. And up to this point in the Cipher 
story all the modifications (with two or three exceptions at the end of the narra- 
tive) grow out of those modifiers which are found in the second column of page 
74, to-wit, 50, 30, 218, iq8, etc. Now we come to the modifiers in the first column 
of page 73, to-wit, 27 or 28, 62 or 63, 89 or go, 78 or 79, 141 or 142, etc. If what 
I have given was the result of accident, the probabilities are that the application of 
these modifiers would bring out words that could not be fitted at all into the story 
produced by the modifiers on page 74, and that would have no relation whatever to 
the news brought by Umfreville. 

And here I would ask the incredulous to write down a sentence of their own 
construction upon any subject, however simple, so that it contains a dozen or more 
words, and then try to find those words in any column of the Shakespeare Plays. 
The chances are nine out of ten they will not succeed. Take these last eleven words, 
which, without premeditation, I have just written down: tlie chances arc 7tiiie out 
of ten they will not succeed; turn to the first column of page 75 and try to find them. 
There is no chances in the column; it occurs but twice in the whole play, and the 
nearest instance is on page 85 of the Folio, twenty columns distant. There is no 
nine in the column, it occurs but once in the whole play, on page 84 of the Folio, 
eighteen columns away. Even the simple little word they cannot be found in that 
column. Neither can ten; it appears on page 76, two columns distant. The word 
succeed is not found in the entire play. The nearest approach to it is succeeds, on 
page 97 of the Folio, forty-four columns distant. If the reader will experiment 
with any other sentence he will be satisfied of the truth of my statement. You 
may sometimes examine a whole column and not find in it such a common word 
as ;V or cr or 7vere. In fact, there are 114,000 words in the English language, and 
the chances, therefore, of finding the precise words you need for any given sen- 
tence, upon a single page of any work, are very slight indeed; for the page can at 
most contain but a few hundred words out of that vast total; and, if we reduce the 
vocabulary from 114,000 to 14,000, the same difliculty will to a large extent still 
present itself. Therefore, even though it may be claimed that I have not reduced 
the Cipher story to that perfect symmetry which greater labor might secure, I 
think it will be conceded by every intelligent mind that the results I have shown 
could not have come about by accident, but that there is a Cipher in the Plays. 

To resume : We saw by the Cipher words given in the last chapter that the 
Queen was furious and had sent out soldiers to arrest somebody, and that the 
play-actors had taken fright and run away ; and we will see hereafter that the 
Queen had beaten some one savagely and nearly killed him. Now, we have just 
learned how the news was brought to Bacon ; how Harry Percy (for I will show 
hereafter that it was Harry Percy) had been over-ridden by a messenger from the 
Earl (of Essex) who had told him the news. Now, if there was no Cipher in this 
text, the next series of modifications, to-wit, those of the first column of page 73, 
would not bring out any words holding any coherence with this narrative, but a 
haphazard lot of stuff having no more to do with it than the man in the moon. 
But what are the facts ? 

Let us, for the purpose of making the explanation clearer, confine ourselves to 
505 and 523. Now, I showed that if we commenced at the beginning of column 
I of page 74 — that is, if we deducted 2S4 down the column, and 283 up the column 
— we would have as a result certain root-numbers, thus: 

505—284=221. 523—284=239. 

505—283=222. 523—283=240. 



(f^z j^Ofc^^i^ 




iVMUt 



u^m "Vij—i}r {yii'Uj Jr^n, ^JT^ jt'^wyyvnci 'Uctu 



pta^ 



'A 



(p. 



:>>Y u) 



VKi4/vC-r 'VV 



fvS 



vK, 



CXJ^'^Co i)ej zt ^3Cr)em ^-MiicL ta^ti^^ oLtactv^ 

f \ I 







Letter from the Lord Chancellor Verulam (Francis Bacon) to the University of Cambridge, 
upon sending to their library his Novum Organum. (Reduced fac-sitnih ) 



• BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 68l 

And I showed that if we modified these numbers, so obtained, by 30 and 50, the 
modifiers in the second column of page 74, we would have these results: 

221—50=171. 239—50=189. 

223—50=172. 240—50=190. 

221—30=191. 239—30=209. 

222—30=192. 240—30=210. 

And I showed that these root-numbers produced, alternately counting and not 
counting the bracketed and additional hyphenated words, the sentence I have 
given: — " I derived these iieivs from one whom I spake with on the zaay here, a 7vell- 
bj-ed gentleman whom mv Lord the Earl sent to tell your Honor the news." 

Now, let us take these same root-numbers and deduct from them the modifiers 
in the first column of page 73, and see what the news was that Umfreville brought 
from Essex. 

We have 505 — 283=222. Let us deduct the words below the first word of the 
last subdivision of column i, page 73, to-wit, 78, from 222: 222 — 78=144. The 
144th word in the second column of page 74, counting in the one hyphenated 
word, is Field, the 143d word, printed in the Folio with a capital F. Now, 
Richard Field, son of Henry Field, of Stratford, was a printer in London. In 
1593 he printed Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis., and the work was published and 
sold, Halliwell-Phillipps tells us, at the White Greyhound, St. Paul's Churchyard, 
by his friend John Harrison, publisher.' In 1594 Field printed the AV/t? ^yZz^r/rr^. 

How he came into this business is not clear. Or the Field here, and so often 
referred to in the Cipher narrative, may have been Nathan Field, the player, who 
was one of the principal actors of the day. It is true that Collier thinks Nathan 
Field was the son of the Puritan preacher John Field, and if so he would have 
been too young in 1597 or 1598 for the part suggested; but Collier may have made 
a mistake. Nathan Field was more likely a Stratford man. 

Now, let us take the root-number 523, deduct 284, and we have 239 ; let us 
deduct from this another of the modifiers in the first column of page 73, to-wit: 90, 
being the nnmber of words above the first word of the third subdivision, and the 
remainder is 149 ; now, let us count down the second column of page 74, again count- 
ing in the one additional hyphenated word, and we find that the 149th word becomes 
the 148th word — is. Now, take again the same root-number, 222; modify it 
by deducting one of the numbers of the second column of page 74 (for thus the 
modifiers of pages 73 and 74 interlock with each other), to-wit: 50; we have 
left 172; now, again deduct the modifier 78, which we have seen produced the 
word Field, and we have left 94 ; we carry 94 up the second column of page 74 
and we reach the word a, the 155th word. We return again to the root-number 
239, which produced the word is, and again deduct the same modifier, 90, and we 
have : 239 — 90=149, and the 149th word, in the second column of page 74, is 
prisoner. Here we have: Field is a prisoner, thus expressed: 

Page and 
Word.. Column. 

505—283=222—78=144—1 //=143. 143 74:2 Field 

523—284=239—90=149—1 //=148. 148 74:2 is 
505—283=222—50=172—78=94. 248—94=154+ 

1=1.55. 155 74:2 a 

523—284=239—90=149. 149 74:2 prisoner, 

But let us go on with the story. The 28 used hereafter is the number from 

' Outlines Li/e 0/ S/ia/cs/eye, p. 70. 



682 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



the top of the column i of page 73 to the top word of the second subdivision, 
inclusive ; the " 17 b & h " means that in carrying the number up the column we 
count in the bracketed and additional hyphenated words in the column, in the 
space passed over. 



Word. 



Page and 
Column. 



505—283^222—78=144. 


144 


74:2 


and 


523—284=239—50—189— 28—161 . 248—161—87 + 








1=88+17 ^& //=105. 


105 


74:2 


is 


505—283—222—78—144. 248—144—104+1— 








105+2 //=107. 


107 


74:2 


wounded 


523—284=239—78=161 . 


161 


74:2 


to 


505 283—222 79—143. 143 30—113. 


113 


74:2 


the 


523 284—239 50—189 79—110. 


110 


74:2 


death; 


505— 284=22 1—30=1 9 1—90=1 01— 7 /'=94. 


94 


74:2 


and 


523 284 239 188 (167+21 <^) 51 27 (73:1)— 24. 


24 


74:2 


Bardolfe 


505—284 221 30_191 79 (73:1)_112— 7 <^_105. 


105 


74:2 


is 


523—283—240—18 b & //— 222— 62 (73:1)— 160. 


160 


74:2 


novr 


505 283—222 79—143. 248—143—105 + 1—106. 


106 


74:2 


almost 


523 284—239 50—189 90—99. 


99 


74:2 


as 


505—283=222—50=1 72—79=93. 


93 


74:2 


good 


523 283—240 90—150. 248 1^0-98+1—99. 


99 


74:2 


as 


505 283—222 79—143 50—93 + 193—286 l/'&Zi- 


= 279 


75:1 


dead; 


523—284=239—50=189—62=127. 248+127=121 + 








1=128. 


122 


74:2 


slain; 


523—283—240 50—190 62—128. 


128 


74:2 


killed 


505—284=221 30—191 63—128. 248—128—120+ 








1=121 +2 //=123. 


123 


74:2 


out-right 


505 284—221 30—191 62—129. 


129 


74:2 


by 


523 284=239 50—189 79—110 7/^-103. 


103 


74:2 


the 


505—284=221—90=1 31 . 


131 


74:2 


hand 


523—284=239—90=149. 248—149=99+1=100+ 








15 /'= 


115 


74:2 


of 


505—284=221—79=142. 


142 


74:2 


the 


523 167—356 90— 266— 15 3 & ^—251. 


251 


74:1 


old 


505 283—222 79—143—50=93 7/^- 86. 


86 


75:1 


jade. 



"Bardolfe" was probably a nickname for Dr. Hayward; — we will see him 
described hereafter as anything but a gentleman in appearance. I have shown, on 
page 30, a/i/t', that the country so swarmed, at that time, with graduates of the uni- 
versities of Oxford and Cambridge, who made their living as beggars, that Parlia- 
ment had to interfere to abate the nuisance. 

Here we have the excited Percy telling the news. It will be observed that 
through twenty-nine instances the root-numbers 505 and 523 alternate without a 
break; and it will also be observed that through thirteen instances the numbers 
505 — 283 222 alternate regularly with 523 — 284=239; and that every word of this 
connected story grows out of these root-numbers, modified by the modifiers 30 and 
50, belonging to the second column of page 74, or 90 and 89, or 28, or 79 and 78, or 
62 and 63, the modifiers found in the first column of page"73. Can any one believe 
that order can thus come out of a chaos of words by a coherent rule if there is no 
^ Cipher here ? If I had the time to do more accurate work, all the above passages 
could be reduced to perfect symmetry, as could every word of the Cipher narrative. 



BACON- HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 683 

The faults rest upon the neglect of certain subtle distinctions. For instance, the modi- 
fier 50 becomes, when counted upward from the last word of the first subdivision of 
column 2 of page 74, 49; just as we see that 79 becomes 78, in the first column of 
page 73, if we count from the beginning of the third subdivision, instead of the end 
of the secend; just as we saw, in column i of page 76, that there were 50 words from 
the end of scene 2 downward, but 49 words from the beginning of scene 3 downward. 
In the same way there are 30 words from the end of the second subdivision of column 
2 of page 74, but only 29 from the beginning of the third subdivision; and we will 
find this 29 playing an important part hereafter in the Cipher. Now, if we use 49 
or 29, where I have employed 50 or 30, we may thereby alter the root-number from 
240 to 239, or from 221 to 222, and thus restore the harmony of the movement of 
the root-numbers. But it would require another year of patient labor to bring this 
about. And it is these subtle differences which make the work so microscopic in 
its character; and if they are not attended to closely, they break up the symmetri- 
cal appearance of the narrative. But the reader will find, as he proceeds, that 
these distinctious are not invented by me to meet the exigencies of this part of my 
work; but that they prevail all through the Cipher story. Thus the evidences of 
the reality of the Cipher are cumulative; and where one page does not carry con- 
viction to the leader, another may; and where both fail, a dozen surely cannot fail 
to satisfy him. 

And the reader will observe that twenty-six words of the twenty-nine in the 
above example all originate in the first column of page 74, and are found in the 
second column of the same. One might just as well suppose that the complicated 
movements of the heavenly bodies resulted from chance, as to believe that these 
twenty-six words, together v^'ith all the other seventy-nine words given in the 
beginning of this chapter, could have occurred, /;/ the second coliiiiin cf page 7^, by 
accident, and at the same time match precisely with the same root-numbers which 
we have seen producing coherent sentences on page 75, and which we will find 
hereafter to produce coherent sentences on all the pages of these two Plays, so far 
as I have examined them. In other words, to deny the existence of the Cipher, 
the incredulous reader will have to assert that one hundred and five words out of the 
tivo hundred and forty-eight in that column, did, by accident, cohere arithmetically 
with each other, and with certain root-numbers, to make the connected story I have 
given ! It will require a vaster credulity to believe this than to believe in the 
Cipher. 

Where the word dead'\s found in the above example the Cipher story overflows 
into the next column, just as it did to produce the narrative of Umfreville stopping 
his weary horse near Percy, on the road to St. Albans. And the reader will 
observe that the same number, — 93, — which produces dead, down from the top of 
the second subdivision in column i of page 75, produces also the word jade down 
from the top of the first subdivision. 

The word c/i;/ requires some explanation. We have seen that the modifiers in 
the second column of page 74 grow out of three subdivisions, the first containing 
50 words, the second 167, the third 30. Now, we have seen that in the other 
words of this story we start either from the top of column 2 of page 74, or from 
the 50 or the 30, etc., and we carry this back practically to the first column of page 
73, deduct from it one of the modifiers in that column, return to the top of the first 
column of page 74, pass through that column, and the remainder over finds the 
Cipher word in the next column forward. But suppose we have deducted a num- 
ber from the root-number so large that after going to column i of page 73, and 
being modified by one of the modifiers there, the remainde. is not so great a num- < 
ber as 284, then, when we try to deduct from it the 284 words on column i of 



684 ^^^^' CIPIJEK NAKRATJVE. 

page 74, there is nothing left to carry over to the next column forward, and the re- 
sult is we must find the Cipher word in the first column of page 74, where the count 
gives out, instead of in the second. This is just what occurs in the case of the 
viOxAold. Let me give a parallel instance: — let us take the word as; strictly 
speaking, we find it in this way: 

523— 50(74:2)=473— 90(73:1)=383— 384(74:1)=99. 99 74:2 as 

Let us put the word old through the same formula, and we have it thus 
expressed: 

523—167 (74:2)=356— 90 (73:1)=266 (74:1)— 15 h & //= 251 74:1 old 

I. More of thp: Cipher Story. 

But this is not all of the Cipher story that is found in this second column of 
page 75; but as it begins to run, as I have shown, from the first column of page 73, 
so the root-numbers produced therefrom commence to apply themselves to other 
columns besides the second of page 74; for it follows of course that the Cipher can- 
not always cling to that column, or it would soon be exhausted; you cannot insert 
a story of 2,000 words in a column of 248 words. Hence we will find the Cipher 
beginning to radiate, right and left, from column i of page 73, to the next column 
forward and the next column backward; and even through the fragments of these 
columns it will be found to overflow into the next columns, just as we found it 
overflowing through the fragments of column 2 of page 74 into column i of page 
75. Thus the reader will perceive that there is order even in apparent disorder, 
and that a symmetrical theory runs all through the Cipher work. 

Here we have, following the preceding statement, and in the same order, the 
words being alternately derived from 505 and 523, modified by the modifiers in the 
last column of page 74, and the first column of page 73, the following statement. And 
the identification of the writer of the internal narrative with Francis Bacon is here 
established. It will be seen that it is "your cousin " that is in authority and that 
sends out the fos/s, or mounted men who ride post, to bring Bacon into court to 
answer the charges which assail his good name; and we know that Bacon's uncle, 
Burleigh, and his cousin, Robert Cecil, really controlled England at that time. And 
we will see hereafter that this "cousin" of the Cipher story is this same QriJ — 
represented in the Cipher as "Sees-i//," or: " Seas-ill," or even "Says-ill;" for the 
name had in that day the broad sound of the e, even as the peasant of Ireland still 
calls the sea the say. And this is one of the proofs of the reality of my work: the 
teller of the story does not say, in a formal manner: "/, Francis Bacon, wrote the 
Shakespeare Plays;" but we stumble upon the middle of a long narrative, in which, 
possibly, the authorship of the Plays was but a minor consideration. 

I would also add that the Fortune and the Curtain were the two leading play- 
houses of that day, at which most of the Shakespeare Plays were first produced; 
and it will be seen how completely this statement that they were in the liands of 
the soldiers accords with the order of the Council stated on page 628, ante, in which 
the Queen directed all the theaters to be dismantled, because the actors had brought 
matters of state on the stage. 



523—283=240—142=98. 248—98=150+1=151 . 
5(),5_284=221 -30=191— 27=164. 
523—284=239—50=189. 248—189=59 + 1=60 + 15 /'=75 





Page and 




Word. 


Column. 




151 


74:2 


Your 


164 


73:2 


cousin 


=75 


74:2 


hath 



BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 



685 









Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




505- 


-283—222—78—144. 




144 


73:2 


even 


523- 


283—240 28—212 


-1 //=211. 


211 


74:2 


sent 


505- 


-284=221—90=131- 


-8/;&//=123. 


123 


74:2 


out 


523- 


30=493 218—275 


-90=185—12 h & //=173. 


173 


74:1 


his 


505- 


-30=475—218=257. 




257 


74:1 


posts 


523- 


-284=239-78=161. 




161 


74:2 


to 


505- 


-284=221—30=191- 


-27=164. 248—164=84 










+ 1=85+2 //=87. 




87 


74:2 


bring 


523- 


-284=239—62=177. 




177 


74:2 


you 


505- 


-284=221—30=191- 


-79=112. 


112 


74:2 


in. 


505- 


-284=221—79=142. 




142 


74:2 


The 


523- 


-283=240—90=150. 


248—150=98+1=99+15 />= 


=114 


74:2 


Fortune 


505- 


284=221 90—131- 


-7/^=124. 


124 


74:2 


and 


523- 


-283=240—30=210- 


-79=131—1 //=130. 


130 


74:2 


the 


505- 


-284=221—78=143- 


-50=93. 193+93=286. 


286 


75:1 


Curtain 


523- 


283—240 62—178. 


248—178=70+1=71. 


71 


74:2 


are 


505- 


-284=221—89=132- 


-7/;=125. 


125 


74:2 


both 


523- 


-284=239—79=160. 




160 


74:2 


now 


505- 


-284=221-27=194. 


248— 1 94— 54 + 1 — 55 + /;— 


(77) 


74:2 


full 


523- 


-284=239—90=149. 


248—149=99 + 1=100+/'= 


= 115 


74:2 


of 


505- 


-284=221. 79—50= 


=29—1 7^=28. 


28 


75:1 


his 


523- 


-30=493— 219=274— 90=184— 10 /'=! 74. 


174 


74:1 


troops. 



69 


74:2 


The 


70 


74:2 


times 


71 


74:2 


are 


72 


74:2 


wild. 



But even this does not exhaust the possibilities of this little column of 248 
words in the hands of the magical cryptographist. I stated that 505 and 523 alter- 
nated with each other, and that 516 and 513 ran in couples. Much that I have 
worked out came from 523 and 505: let us now turn to the other numbers. And 
here we have a typical sentence: 

516—284=232—30=202. 248—202=46+1=47+23/;= 69 
513—284=229—50=179. 248—179=69+1= 
516—284=232—30=202. 248—202=46+1=47+ 

24 i^ & /^=71 
513—284=229—50=179. 248—179=69+1=70+2 /i= 

Observe the perfect symmetry of this sentence. Take it in columns: — the 
figures of the first column are 516 — 513 — 516 — 513; those of the second column are 
284^284 — 284 — 2S4; those of the third column are 232 — 229 — 232 — 229; those of 
the fourth column are 30 — 50 — 30 — 50; those of the fifth column are 202 — 179 — 202 
— 179; those of the sixth column, 248 — 248 — 248 — 248; those of the seventh column, 
202 — 179 — 202 — 179; and they produce in regular order the 69///, 70M, y/st, and 
J2d words, to-wit: the times are -wild. And every one of these words is obtained 
by going ///> the same column. And even in the application of the bracket and 
hyphenated words the reader will perceive, as he goes on, a regular system and 
sequence. 

And here I would call the attention of the reader to the fact that this expres- 
sion, " ilte times are 7vild," was used in that age where we to-day would say the 
times are disturbed or dangerous. We see the expression in this very column: 



What news. Lord Bardolfe ? 
The times are wild. 



686 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



One such Cipher sentence as the above is by itself enough to demonstrate the 
existence of a Cipher in the Shakespeare Plays. And I think the reader will be 
ready to take it for granted that any imperfections which may exist in other sen- 
tences are due to my imperfect work, and not to the Cipher itself. 

But this sentence does not stand alone: — the proofs are cumulative. He will 
find flowing right out of the same roots, varied only by the fact that the ground 
gone over becomes exhausted, and the Cipher numbers have therefore to apply 
themselves in contiguous columns, a continuous story. And here I would say that 
the Earl of Shrewsbury herein referred to was one of the Cecil or anti-Essex 
party. He was one of the Commissioners to try Essex on the preliminary charges 
preferred against him, and afterwards sat as one of the jury of peers who tried 
him for his life.' He was an acquaintance of Bacon, for we find him on the 15th of 
October, 1601 writing the Earl a letter, asking " to borrow a horse and armor for 
a public show " of some kind, probably " the joint mask of the four Inns of 
Court."- He was one of the Cecil courtiers, and very likely to have been sent out 
by Cecil for the purpose indicated. 



516—284=233- 
513—284=229- 



.18/'&//=214. 
-50= 179. 



-50= 
-50=179. 



183. 



516—283=233 
513—284=229 
513—284=229. 
513—283=230—50= 180 
516—284=232—21 /'=211. 
513—283=230—50= 180 

=233— 18/^&/^=215. 
513—284=229—50=179. 248—179 



Word, 
248-214=34+1=35.. 35 
248- 179=69+ 1=70-F 

15 /'=85 
248—183=65+1=66. 66 

179 



Page and 
Column. 

74:2 



20 3&/;=160. 



50=130—7 (''=123. 



229 
160 

311 
123 
315 



=69+1= 



513—50=483- 217= 
516—283=233—50= 



=266. 



183. 



70+ 

.17^&//= 87 
266 
248—183=65+1=66 

+ 15/'=81 
516—281=232-50=182. 348—182=66+1=67+15/'= 82 
513—284=229—18/^ & //=21 1—30=181. 248—181= 

67+1=68 + 15 /'=83. 83 

516—283=233—30=203. 248—203=45+1=46. 46 

513—284=229—50=179—50=129. 129 

516—284=233—50=182. 248—182=66+1=67. 67 

513—284=229-18 b & //=21 1—30=181. 348—181= 

67+1=68. 68 

516—384=333—217=15. 447—15=432+1=433. 433 
513—50=463—197=266. 226 

516—284=232—317=15. 15 

513— 318=395— 10/^=385-284=1. 1 

516—384=333—3 /^=330. ' 230 

513—283=230—30=200. 200 

516—284=232—18=214. 248—214=34+1=35+2 /i= 37 



74:2 
74:2 
74:2 
74:2 
74:2 
84:2 
74:2 
74:3 

74:3 
74:1 

74:3 
74:3 

74:2 
74:2 
74:2 
74:2 

74:2 
75:1 
74:1 
74:2 
74:2 
74:2 
74:2 
74:3 



The 

Earl 

of 
Shrewsbury 

is 

now 

sent 

out 

to 

bring 
them 

all 
before 

him 
and 
by 

some 

stratagem 

make 

them 
say 

who 
furnished 

these 

plays. 



But this is not all the story originating from the first column of page 74, and 
'Spedding, /,?/<' antf U-'prks, vol. 2, pp. 173 and 283. 'Ibid., p. 370. 



BACON HEARS THE BAD NEWS. 687 

found in the second column of page 74 and the first column of page 75. For 
instance, in the first column of page 75 we have the conversation between Percy 
and Umfreville, and a description of how Percy " struck the rowell of his spur 
against the panting sides of his horse " and rode ahead to St. Albans to tell the 
news. And in the second column of page 74 we have the directions from Bacon 
to the servant " who keeps the gate" to take Umfreville into the orchard, where 
Bacon followed him and had a secret conversation with him, in which he tells him 
all the news which is related in the following chapters. To work out all this 
fully would take more space and time than I can afford; but if the reader will 
employ the root-numbers I have given above, and modify them as I have shown 
in the above examples, he will be able to elaborate this part of the Cipher story for 
himself. 

I am aware that Collier ' claims that the Fortune play-house was built origi- 
nally in 1 599-1600, by Phillip Henslow and Edward Allen, while I suppose the 
narrative to refer to 1597; but this, in all probability, was a re -building or enlarge- 
ment; for Maitland called the Fortune "the oldest theater in London," and Sir 
John Chamberlain spoke of it as "the first play-house in this town." It would be 
very natural on such re-building or enlargement to use the old name, which already 
had a trade value; and we know that the Fortune play-house was burned down in 
1621 and re-erected with the same name; and if this was done in 1621, it may also 
have been done in 1 599-1600. 

^English Dramatic Poetry, vol. iii, p. 114. 



CHAPTER V. 

CECIL TELLS THE STORY OF MARLOWE. 

Let them tell thee tales 
Of woeful ages long ago betid. 

Richard II., v, l. 

UMFREVILLE tells Bacon what Cecil told the Queen. Cecil 
is trying to show that Shakspere did not write the Plays, and 
incidentally he tells the story of Marlowe. The words more-low 
doubtless give the broad pronunciation which attached to the name 
Marlowe in that age; and for the better hiding of the Cipher it was 
necessary to use words having the same sound, but a different 
spelling. 

The facts stated in the Cipher narrative accord substantially 
with what we know of the biography of Marlowe. 

The dagger of Francis Archer averted one trouble which was hanging omin- 
ously over his victim's head. A very few days before the poet's death a "note" 
of his " damnable opinions and judgment of religion and God's work had been laid 
before Elizabeth's council, with a view to the institution of proceedings against 
him."' 

And, singularly enough, when we turn to the original paper now 
in the British Museum (MS. Harl. 6853, folio 320), in which the in- 
former, Richard Bame, made those charges against Marlowe, after 
giving many of the poet's irreligious and anti-Christian utterances, 
the document concludes with the following: 

He sayeth, moreover, that he hath coated [quoted] a number of contrarieties out 
of the Scripttires, which he hath geeven to some great men, 'who in convenient tyme 
shal be named. When these things shall be called in question, the witnesses shall be 
produced.*' 

It would almost seem as if there was a knot of young men, 
among whom was Bacon, of an irreligious turn of mind; and 

> The Works of Marlmve, Chatto & Windus, p. 20. 2 ibj^j^ note B, page 370. 

688 



CECIL TELLS THE STORY OF MARLOWE. 689 

Marlowe had inconsiderately repeated in public some of the cur- 
rent expressions which he liad heard among them; and the "contra- 
rieties out of the Scriptures" might have been the very Characters of 
a Believi>ig Christian in Paradoxes., which Bacon may have read 
over to his Bohemian associates. And we can here see that who- 
ever had this " note" of the informer's statements laid before the 
council, knew that there were "some great men" connected, in 
some way, with Marlowe, whom it was probably desirous to get at. 
And all this strikingly confirms the Cipher story. 

And here I would note that heretofore the Cipher has advanced 
from one column to the next; but as we now reach the beginning 
of the second scene, it not only flows forward to the next column, 
but it moves backward and forward from the end of the same 
scene second, and also from the beginning and end of the preceding 
scene, called the Inductio7i. And it will be observed that, having in 
this way more points of departure, the root-numbers do not alternate 
as in the simpler instances already given, but a great deal more of 
the story flows out of one number. 

And I would further note that heretofore the outside play bore 
some resemblance to the internal story, because the Cipher words 
were all packed in a small compass; but here we come to apart of 
the work where the Cipher narrative, being more widely scattered, 
has no resemblance to the tale told in the play; and yet out of 
the same root-numbers is eliminated a narrative as coherent and 
rhetorical as that already given. 

It will be observed that the following sentence alternates regu- 
larly between 523 and 505, and that in each instance the starting- 
point is from the top of the third subdivision of column 2 of page 
74. From and including the word ;//r, at the beginning of the 
sentence, " My Lord, I over-rode him on the way," to the top of the 
column, there are 219 words. And the reader will perceive that 
each word starts from this point, so that we have, in this long sen- 
tence of twenty words, 523 alternated with 505, in each case 219 
being deducted; and each word is either the 304th word or the 
286th word. But in the space comprising those 219 words there 
are twenty-one bracket words. These constitute the "21 f which, 
the reader will see, are deducted from both 304 and 286. The 15 



690 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



l> & h refers, as shown previously, to the 15 bracketed and hyphen- 
ated words comprised in the upper or lower subdivisions of col- 
umn I of page 75, the count moving through these to reach the 
next column. 



523—219=304—254=50. 348—50=198+1=199 + 1 /^=200 
505—219=286—50=286. 248-236=12+1=13+ 

24 b & /^=37. 
523—219=304—218=86. 447— 86=361 + 1=362+3 A 
505—219=286—50=236. 
523—219=304—21 /;=283. 283—193=90. 284— 

90=194+1=195+6 7^=201. 
505—219=286—21 />=265. 447—265=182+1= 

183+4 //=187. 
523—219=304—21 /;=283. 283—193=90. 284— 

90=194+1=195. 
505—219=286—21 /.=265. 447—265=182+1=183. 
523—219=304—50=254. 
505—219=286—254=32—15 /' & //=17. 508—17= 

491 + 1=493+1 /,=493. 493 75:i stage 

This sentence is perfectly symmetrical. Observe the arrangement of the lines: 
(i) 523—505—523—505—523—505—523—505—523—505; (2) 219-219-219-219— 
219 — 219 — 219 — 219 — 219 — 219; (3) 304 — 286 — 304 — 286 — 304 — 286 — 304 — 286 — 
304 — 286. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




=200 


74:2 


These 


37 


74:2 


plays 


=365 


75:1 


are 


236 


75:1 


put 


201 


74:1 


abroad 


187 


75:1 


at 


195 


74:1 


first 


183 


75:1 


upon 


254 


75:1 


the 



505—219= 
523—219= 
505—197= 
523—219= 
505—219= 
523—219= 
219 + 
505—219= 
491- 
523—219= 
505—219= 
523—219= 



=286—30=256. 
=30 

=308 
=304 
=286- 
=304 



■21 /'=283— 218=65. 

254=54. 248—54=194+1=195. 

■22 d & //=282. 447—282=165 + 1= 

30=256. 447—256=191 + 1=192. 

-21 /;=283. 283—218=65. 284—65= 
1=220+6 //=226. 

=286—254=32—15 /; & /^=17. 508—17 
F 1=492 

=304—21 /;=283. 
=286—193=93. 
=304—30=274. 447—274=173+1=174. 



256 


75:1 


in 


65 


74:1 


the 


195 


74:2 


name 


166 


75:1 


of 


192 


75:1 


More 



226 

492 

283 

93 

174 



74:1 



low, 



75:2 a 

75:1 woe-begone, 
75:2 sullen 



75:1 



fellow. 



Here the Cipher numbers change from 523 and 505 to 516 and 513. 



51 6—1 67=349—30=319—254=65. 

516—167=349—30=319. 

516—167=349-21 /;=328. 498—328=170+1=171. 

513—167=346—30=316—193=123—15=108. 448— 

108=340+1=341. 
513—1 67=346—254=92 . 
513—167=346—254=92—15 /' & 7^=77. 448—77= 

371 + 1=372. 
513—167=346—254=92. 448—92=356+1=357. 



65 

319 
171 


75:2 
76:1 
76:1 


He 

had 

engaged 


841 
92 


76:1 

75:2 


in 
a 


372 

357 


76:1 
76:1 


quarrel 
with 



CECIL TELLS THE STORY OF MARLOWE. 



691 



Word. 
513—167=346—1 //=345— 30=315. 498—315=183+ 

1=184+8 /;=192. 193 

513—167=346—23 h & //=334— 30=294— 50 (76.1.)= 

244—4 //=240. 240 

516—167=349—50=299. 448—399=149+1=150. 150 
513—167=346—354=93. 93 

516— 167=349— 22(5 & //=327— 284=43. 248—43=205 

+ 1=206+1 /;=207. 307 

516—167=349—50=399—49 (76:1)=350. 350 

516—167=349—33 /> & /,=337— 30=397— 50=247 - 

193=54—15=39. 39 

513—167=346—354=93—15 l> & //=77. 508—77= 

431 + 1=433 + 1 //=433. 433 

513—167=346—354=93. 447—92=355+1=356 -h 

3 /;=359. 

516—167=349—49 (76:1)=300. 508—300=208+1= 
516—167=349—22 d & h=Z21. 
516—167=349—30=319—197 (74:3) =133. 384— 

132=163+1=163. 
513—167=346—1 //=345— 30=315— 10 b & /;=305. 
516— 167=349— 32 ^ & /^=327. 498—327=171 + 1= 
516—167=349—50=299. 603—299=304+1=305. 
513—167=346—22 d & //=324— 30=294. 
516—167=349—49 (76:1)=300. 603—300=303+1= 
516—167=349—33 /> & 7^=337—354=73. 508—73= 

435+1=436+1/^=437. 
516—167=349—33 /; & 7^=337- 50=377— 7 /> & h= 
516—167=349. 448—349=99+1=100+11 /'=111. 
516—167=349—30=319—49 (176.1) =370. 
513—167=346—33 b & 7^=334—348=76. 384—76= 

208+1=209+6 7/=215. 215 

516—167=346—30=319. 447—319=128+1=139+ 

16/;&7/=]45. 145 

513—167=346—33 b & 7^=334-348=76. 3''4— 76= 

208+1=309. 309 

513—167=346—22 b & 7/=324— 248=76. 76 

516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327—30=297—384=13— 

1()^(74:1)=3. 337—3=334+1=335. 235 

516—167=349—33 b & 7^=327—348 (74:3)=79. 384— 

79=205+1=206 + 6 //=21 3. 313 

513—167=346—33 /; & 7/=324— 248 (74:2)=76— 1 //= 75 
516—167=349—22 b & 72=327-348=79. 79 

513—167=346—33 b & 72=334-348=76-9 b & 7/=67. 67 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327— 248=79— 8 /; & 7/ exc.= 71 
516—1 67=349—23 b & 72=337—348=79—7 /;=73. 72 

513— 1 67=346— 33 b & 7/=324— 50=274— 348=36. 36 

513—167=346—33 b & 72=334—50=374—348=36. 26 

513—167=346—22 /; & 72=324—248=76. 76 

513—167=346— 248=98—24 b & h (74:3) 

=74—10 7^=64. 64 



Page and 
Column. 



76:1 



one 



76:1 Arch \ 

76:1 or, f 

75:3 a 

74:3 servant, 

76.3 about 

75:3 a 

75:3 wanton, 



359 


75:1 


ending 


309 


75:3 


in 


337 


76:1 


a 


163 


74:1 


bloody 


305 


76:3 


hand 


173 


76:1 


to 


305 


76:3 


hand 


394 


76:1 


fight, 


304 


76:3 


in 


437 


75:3 


which 


370 


76:3 


he 


111 


76:1 


was 


370 


75:3 


slain. 



74:1 

75:1 

74:1 
75:1 

73:3 

74:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:2 
74:1 
74:1 



The 
point 

of 

his 

own 

sword 

struck 

against 

his 

head 

and 

eye, 

making 

fearful 



74:1 wounds. 



6g: 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



This account of Marlowe's death agrees exactly with the records and traditions 
which have come down to us. The parish register of Debtford, the village to which 
he had fled, records " Christopher Marlowe, slaine by ffrancis Archer, the i of 
June, 1593." His biographer says: 

In the last week of May, 1593, he was carousing at Debtford, in — to say the 
least — very doubtful company; and, taking offense at some real or supposed insult 
to himself or his female companion, he unsheathed his dagger to avenge it, and, 
in the scuffle which ensued, received a mortal wound in the head from his own 
weapon. 



And in a contemporary ballad, Tlu- Atheist' i 
death is thus told: 



Taigedie, the story of Marlowe's 



His lust was lawless as his life. 

And brought about his death, 
For, in a deadlie mortal strife, 

Striving to stop the breath 
Of one who was his rival foe. 

With his own dagger slaine. 
He groaned and word spake never moe. 

Pierced through the eye and braine. 

The reader will observe the exquisite cunning with which the name of Archer 
is concealed in the text. The first syllable is the first syllable of Arch-bishop, sepa- 
rated from bishop by a hyphen. Arch comes from 513- — 167 — 30, and <:?;- from 516 
— 167 — 50: here we have the two common modifiers 30 and 50. But to obtain the 
first syllable, we count in the brackets and hyphens in 167; in the other case we do 
not; and, in the first instance, we begin at the end of scene 2, descend to the bot- 
tom of the column, and, returning to the top of the column, go downward ; in the 
other case, we begin at the same point of departure and go itp the column. 

But there is even more of the story about Marlowe. We have references to 
these very proceedings against him for blasphem}'. 



523 
167 

356 



356 
50 

306 



356 
30 

326 



356 

21 

335 



356 

22 ^ & /i 



334 



Word. 

523—1 67=356—50=306—1 93=113. 508—113=395 

+ 1=396. 396 

523—167=356—284=73—7 h (74:1)=65. 65 

523—167=356—50=306—13 /'=293. 293 

523—167=356—192=164. 508—164=344+1=345. 345 
523—167=356—21 b (167)=335— 192=143— 15 h & h 

=128. 498—128=370+1=371. 371 

523—167=356—21 b (167)=335— 192=143. 143 
523—167=356—248=108. 193+108=301—7 b & h= 294 

523—167=356—248=108. 193+108=301. 301 

523—167=356—50=306. 448—306=143. 143 

523—167=356—193=163. 458—163=295+1=296. 296 

523—1 67=356—193=1 63. 458— 1 63=395 + 1=296 + 

3 /^=299. 299 



523—167=356—30=326—254=72. 



72 



Page and 
Column. 



75:2 
74:2 
75:1 
75:2 

76:1 
75:2 

75:1 
75:1 
76:1 
76:2 



76:2 



75:2 



My 
father 
would, 

in 

his 

wrath, 

have 

burned 

the 

horson 

rascally- 

yea- 

forsooth- 

knave 

alive 



CECIL TELLS THE STORY OF MARLOWE. 



693 



533—167=356 
523—167=356 
523—167=356— 
523—167=856 
523—167=356— 
523—167=356- 
1=491+3^ 
523—167=356— 

143=460+ 
523—167=356— 
523—167=356 
523—167=356—: 
523—167=356— 

143=460+ 



447—356=91 + 1=92+5 h=m. 

498—356=142+1=143. 
50=306. 

21 /;=335— 192=143— 15 l> & /i=128. 
193=163. 603—163=440+1=441. 
193=163—50=113. 603—113=490+ 
=494. 

21 /; (167)=335— 192=143. 603— 
1=461. 

50=306—248=58. 
253=103. 603—103=500+1=501. 
254=102. 603—102=501 + 1=502. 
2W;(167)=335— 192=143. 603— 
1=461+3 /^=464. 



Word. 
97 
143 
306 
128 
441 

494 



Page and 
Column. 




75:1 


in 


76:1 


the 


75:1 


fire 


76:1 


of 


76:2 


Smithfield 



76:2 



for 



461 


76:2 


the 


58 


75:2 


sin 


501 


76:2 


he 


502 


76:2 


hath 



464 



76:2 committed 



79 


75:1 


against 


370 


76:1 


Heaven 


72 


75:1 


and 


202 


76:1 


the 


134 


75:2 


state. 



Here the Cipher root-number changes, by one degree, from 523 — 167=^356 to 
516—167=349. 

516—167=349-22 i & 7^=327-248=79. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 248=79. 448—79= 

369 + 1=370. 
516—167=349—22 /v & 7^=327— 248=79— 7 ^=72. 
516—167=349—22 1> & 7^=327—30=297. 498—297= 

201 + 1=202. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7/=327— 193=134. 

The reader will observe here another of those extraordinary hyphenations, 
which, of themselves, ought to go far to prove the artificial and unnatural charac- 
ter of the text of the Plays: rascally-yea-forsooth-knave. Here are four words 
united into one word by hyphens ! I doubt if another such example can be found 
in the literature of the last two hundred and fifty years. 

Smithfield, the reader is aware, is that part of London where offenders against 
religion were burned alive. It was there John Rogers suffered in 1555. 

If there is no Cipher here, is it not remarkable that Smithfield should occur in 
the text just where it is wanted so as to cohere arithmetically with burned, alive and 
fire. And we will see hereafter, in the chapter on the Purposes of the Plays, that 
the same 163 (523 — 167=356 — 193^163) which, carried up the second column of 
page 76, brings us to Smithfield, carried up ihe first column of the same page brings 
us to religion, the 336th word in the column. A very pregnant association of ideas 
in that age: Smithfield 2,nA religion! For we will see that Cecil charges that the 
Plays, not only under the name of Shakespeare, but also under that of Marlowe, 
were written by Bacon with intent to bring the religious opinions of the day into 
contempt. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE STORY OF SlIAKSPERE'S YOUTH. 

I long 
To hear the story of your life, which must 
Take the ear strangely. 

Tempest^ v, 1. 

HERETOFORE the story has flowed mainly from the first col- 
umn of page 74, or, as in the last chapter, from the last sub- 
division of column 2 of page 74. We come now to a part of the story 
which is derived altogether from the middle subdivision of column 
2 of page 74, and which flows forward and backward, after this 
fashion: 



Page 74. 

Col.I._,.Col.2. 



Page 75. 
—..Col. I. X0I.2. 




\ / 

1 


\ 


\ 

\ 
A ', 

1 ! 



Page 76. 
Col.i. --C0I.2. 


/ 


1 


' 1 




; t 

, 1 

/ 1 








\ \ 


* 


H 


1 



That is to say: starting from that middle subdivision of column 
2 of page 74, the count is carried up and down the next column, 
forward and backward, and through these, or their subdivisions, to 
the contiguous, columns. And the count (as indicated by the con- 
tinuous line) is carried forward to the end of the same scene in 
which that second subdivision is found, and thence radiates up and 
down, right and left, as shown in the diagram. It is also carried 
backward to the beginning of the preceding scene, and of the scene 
preceding that, and from these points of departure radiates up and 

694 



THE STORY OF SHAKSPEKE'S YOUTH. 695 

down, backward and forward, until all the possibilities are ex- 
hausted. 

And even the incredulous reader will be forced to observe that 
these numbers, so applied, bring out a body of words totally 
different from those which told of the flight of the actors or the bring- 
ing of the news to St. Albans; and these words describe the events 
of Shakspere's youth, and could scarcely be twisted into describing 
anything else. 

And every word is produced by one of the following root- 
numbers, used directly or subjected to the ordinary modifications, 
to-wit: 356, 338, 349 and 346. And these numbers are thus ob- 
tained: 

523 505 516 513 

167 167 167 167 

356 338 349 346 

This 167 is, of course, the number of words in that middle sub- 
division of 74:2; that is to say, from 51, the first word of the middle 
subdivision, to 318, the last word of the same, counting in that last 
word, there are just 167 words. 

But the above numbers are first modified by the counting in of 
the bracketed words and additional hyphenated words in that sec- 
ond subdivision of column 2 of page 74, to-wit, 22. This gives us, 
applied to the above root-numbers, the following results: 

356 338 349 346 

22 22 22 22 

334 316 327 324 

And these, in turn, are modified by the modifiers on pages 74 and 
73, as in the former chapters. And here again, as in the former 
instances, for a time the 523 alternates with the 505, and the 516 
with the 513, and then the story is all told by a single number. 

But these numbers are also modified by the counting in of the 
21 bracket w^ords alone in that second subdivision, exclusive of the 
one additional hyphenated word; and also by counting in the one 
hyphenated word alone exclusive of the 21 bracket words; and this 
gives us the following results: 

Counting in the bracketed words alone — 



696 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



356 
21 



338 
21 



327 
21 



346 
21 



335 317 306 325 

Counting in the hyphenated word alone — 



356 
1 

355 



338 
1 

337 



327 
1 

326 



346 
1 

345 



And it will be observed hereafter that these numbers are cun- 
ningly adjusted so as to use the same words in different sentences, 
the external play, as well as the internal story, being twisted to con- 
form thereto. And hence peculiarities of expression may some- 
times be accounted for by the necessities of this Cipher story inter- 
locking with itself. 

I do not give the story in its regular order^ but in fragments, se- 
lecting first those examples which are simplest, and therefore more 
easily capable of demonstration. Describing Shakspere's revenge 
on Sir Thomas Lucy, the Cipher story furnishes us the following 
statements. The 145 and 146 relate to the second subdivision of 
the second column of page 76; there being 145 words from the top 
of the subdivision inclusive and 146 words from the end word in- 
clusive of the first subdivision. There are also three words in 
brackets in this subdivision, and these, when counted in, increase 
the 145 to 148, and the 146 to 149. The 254 and 193, used below^ 
are, of course, the same 193 and 254 which produced the story of the 
flight of the actors; that is to say, they represent the two subdi- 
visions of column i of page 75. 



505— 167=338— 284=54— 7 /:=47. 

533—167=356—22 b & //=334— 145=189— 8 b & /i= 

505—167=338—146=192. 

523—167=356—50=306—145=161. 

505—167=338—145=193. 

523—167=356—22 d & 7^=334— 50=284— 254=30. 

448—30=418+1=419. 
505— 167=338— 145=193— 3 /'=190. 
523—167=356—22 d & //=334— 254=80— 15 /> & Ii= 
505—167=338—22 b & /^=316— 30=286. 457—286= 

171 + 1=172. 
523—167=356—22 b & /^=334— 145=189. 448—189= 

259+1=260. 



Vord. 


Page and 
Column. 




47 


74:2 


He 


181 


77:1 


goes 


192 


76:1 


one 


161 


77:1 


day 


193 


76:1 


and 


419 


76:1 


with 


190 


76:1 


ten 


65 


76:1 


of 


172 


76:2 


his 


260 


76:1 


followers 



THE STORY OF SHAA'SPERE'S 



505—167=338—22=316—30=286—5 h=2%\ . 
523—167=356—30=326. 448—326=122+1=123. 
505—167=338—50=288—145=143. 
523—167=356—30=326—50=276—254=22+ 

448=470. 
505—167=338—50=288—284=4. 
523—167=356. 356—146=210—6 /'=204. 
505—167=338—22=316—145=171—3 ^=168. 448— 

168=330+1=331. 
523—167=356—22 /> & //=334— 30=304— 30=274— 

14.^=lo8_3 /;=125. 448—125=323+1=324. 
505—167=338—22=316—145=171. 498—171=328. 
523—167=356—22=334—193=141—15=126—49=77. 
505— 167=338— 22=316— 50=L66. 
523—167=356—30=326—193=133. 508—133=375+ 

1=376. 
505—167=338—30=308—1 93=1 1 5 . 
505— 167=338— 5 //=335 

523—167=356—30=326—145=181—3 ^=177—9 /' & A- 
505—167=338—50=288—145=143. 
523—167=356—22=334—50=284—254=30—15 /' & // 

=15+448=463. 
505—167=338—145=193—6 /;=187. 
523—166=357—50=306—145=161. 448—161= 

287 + 1=288. 
523—107=356—22=334—50=284—193=91. 448- 

91=3.57+1=358. 
505—167=338—50=288—22=266—145=121. 448— 

121=327+1=328. 
523—167=356—22=334—14 /;=320. 
505— 167=338— 22=316— 145=171— 3 /'=168. 
523—167=356—145=211. 448—211=237+1=238. 
505—167=338—14 /;=324. 

523—167=356—50=306—284=22. 248—22=226+1 
505—167=338—11 /> & /i=327. 
523—167=356—50=306—284=23. 
505—167=338—284=54—18 /> & /^=36. 



■ YOUTH. 






Page and 




l^ord. 


Column. 




281 


76:1 


did 


123 


76:1 


lift 


143 


76:1 


the 


470 


76:1 


water 


4 


74:1 


gate 


204 


76:1 


of 



697 



331 

324 
328 

77 
266 

376 
115 
335 

=168 
143 

463 

187 

288 

358 

328 
320 
168 
238 
324 
227 
327 
22 
36 



76:1 

76:1 
76:1 
76:2 
76:1 

75:2 
76:1 
76:1 
76:1 
76:1 

76:1 
76:1 

76:1 

76:1 

76:1 
76:1 

76:1 
76:1 
76:1 
74:2 
76:2 
74:2 
74:2 



the 

fish 
pond 

off 

the 

hinges 

and 

turns 

all 

the 

water 
out 

from 

the 

pond, 

froze 

all 

the 

fish, 

and 

girdles 

the 
orchard. 



There may, of course, be flaws discovered in the workmanship of the above; 
but I think the candid man will concede that these significant words could not all 
have come together through the same root-numbers, by accident. They will be 
found nowhere else in the same order. In fact, pond is not found iaany other 
place in these two plays, and but four other times in all the Shakespeare Plays, 
and froze occurs but this one time in both these plays, and but three other times in 
all the Shakespeare Plays; while Jish occurs but once in 2d Henry IV. But here 
we have/j/;, pond 2>.ndi froze and turns all coming together in the same paragraph; 
and in the next paragraph water, and in the same column nearly all the words out 
of which the above sentence is constructed. The word hinges is rare; it occurs but 
one other time in all the Plays, and the word hinge but twice. It would be little 
less than a miracle if these unusual words should all come together in one spot, 



698 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



just where they are needed, to tell the story of Shakspere's youth. And the story 
that is here told, be it observed, while consistent with the traditions of Stratford 
that there had been a riot (the same riot alluded to in The Mcny Wives of Windsor), 
in which the young men of the town took part with Shakspere as their leader, 
against Sir Thomas Lucy, is, at the same time, not a statement of anything which 
had already come down to us. 

And to show that this story is not forced, observe how markedly the significant 
words grow out of the root-numbers. For instance, 505 less 167 is 338; the 338th 
word is sincere, which, as we will see hereafter, refers to Shakspere's father; but, 
if we count in the five hyphenated words, then the 338th word is the 333d 
word, turns — turns the water out of the pond. But if we count in the fourteen 
bracketed words, then the 338th word is the 324th word, fish. And if we take 523 
and deduct 167, we have 356, which is rising; or, counting in the 22 bracketed and 
hyphenated words contained in the 167 words, we have 334, which is insurrection, 
referring, with rising, to the riot inaugurated by the boys of Stratford; and, if we 
count in the 14 bracketed words in the column, we have 320, froze. 

But let us go a step further and find 356 in the first column of page 75, and the 
word is a7oay, referring to the running away of the young men; while 334 (356 less 
the 22 /' & h words) is fought; and up the column it is spur, the latter part of Shak- 
spere's name; and if we take 356 and modify it by deducting the modifier 30, we 
have 326, and if we take from this 193, the first subdivision of column i of page 75, 
the remainder is 133, the word bloody; and if we take 505 — 167=338 and deduct 
from this the modifier 50, we have 288, and if v^e carry this down the first column 
of page 76, counting in the twelve bracketed words, we find that the 288th word is 
the 276th word, fight. So that we see that not only do these roots, even subjected 
to the simplest treatment, yield the story I have given in detail about the destruction 
of the fish-pond, but the same roots also tell the story of how Shak-j//<;- foitght a 
bloody fight. But all this I shall give with more detail hereafter. 

What I claim is, that the existence of the Cipher is not only proved by the fact 
that certain root-numbers, applied to a particular column, yield a consistent nar- 
rative peculiar to that column, and which could not be found anywhere else; but 
that these same root-numbers applied to other contiguous columns, produce other 
parts of that same story, each part being consistent with the rest and forming 
together a continuous narrative. 

For instance, these root-numbers, so applied, give us the following narrative of 
the battle between the young men of Stratford and Sir Thomas Lucy's game- 
keepers: 



505—167=388—22=316—30=286—15 b & h 
523-167=356—22 b & //=334— 50=284. 
50,5—167=338—30=308—5 //=303. 
523—167=356—22 /' & //=334— 30=304. 
50.5—167=338—30=308—193=115. 
523- -167=356 —22 b & //=334. 
50.5—167=338—22/^ & //=316— 193=123. 

3854-1=386+1 //=387 
523—167=356—30=326. 326-193=133. 
505—167=338—50=288—12 /'=276. 
505—167=338—22 /; & /;=316— 5 7^=311 
505—1 67=338— 50=288— 1 93=95, 







Page and 






Word. 


Column. 




'^=271. 


271 


74:1 


They 




284 


75:1 


drew 




303 


76:1 


their 




304 


76:1 


weapons 




115 


76:1 


and 




334 


76:1 


fought 


508—123= 


= 








387 


75:2 


a 




133 


75:2 


bloody 




276 


76:1 


fight 




311 


76:1 


for 




95 


76:1 


an 



THE STORY OF SHAKSPERE'S YOUTH. 



699 



505—167=338—30=308—254=54. 508—54=454+ 1 

505—167=338—22 1> & //=316— 50=266— 4 /i=262. 

505—167=338. 

505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 1 93=1 15. 508—115= 

393+1=394. 
505—167=338—30=308. 498—308=190+1=191. 
523—167=356—22 l> & 7^=334— 248=86— 50=36— 

9 /^ & //=27. 



Word. 
455 
262 
338 

394 
191 

27 



Page and 
Column. 

75:1 

74:1 

75:1 

75:2 
76:1 



hour, 

not 

stopping 

even 
to 



75:1 breathe. 



218 


75:1 


left 


238 


75:1 


his 


85 


75:1 


poor 


131 


75:1 


young 


86 


75:1 


jade 



The reader will note the constant recurrence of the numbers 316, 334, 308, etc. 
■ And here we have a statement which accords well with what we know, by 
tradition, of Shakspere's hurried departure for London: 

505—167=338—30=308. 308 75:1 He 

505—167=338—50=288—50 (76:1)=238. 447-238 

=209+1=210+8 /;=218. 
505— 167=338— 50=288— 50 (76:1)=238. 
523—167=356—22/. & //=334— 248=86— 1 /^=85. 
505_167=338— 193=145— 14 ^> & //=131. 
523—167=356—22 d & /^=334— 248=86. 
505—167=338—22 1> & /^=316— 30=286— 1 93=93— 

10/;=85. 83 74:1 big 

523— 167=856— ■: 2 l> & 7^=334-248=86-22 i (74:2)= 

64— 17/=63. 63 75:1 with 

505— 167=338— 22 /.& 7^=316— 30=289— 193=93. 93 74:1 child. 

Observe that there is a difference of precisely ten words between ///[t;- and child: 
— big is 83, child is 93; and there are precisely ten bracketed words in the column 
above the 83 and 93. The evidences of arithmetical adjustment are found every- 
where. 

And here, in the same connection, I would call the attention of the critical 
reader to the marvelous evidences of the artificial character of the text shown in 
that word jade It is often used in the narrative in connection with the word old — 
"the old jade" — to describe the Queen. It would, of course, have provoked 
suspicion if the Plays had been dotted all over with the word queen; and hence, as 
Bacon had repeated cause to refer to her in his internal narrative, he had to do so 
in some indirect way; and one of his favorite expressions was "the old jade." 
But it would not have been safe to use even these words too often, and therefore, 
when they were employed, the scenes and fragments of scenes had to be so 
adjusted that they would fit to them by the different counts of the Cipher, so that 
they might be used over and over again, in the progress of the story. 

For instance: 

(I.) We have here seen that 523, less all the words in the second subdivision 
of 74:2, is 334. If now we commence to count from the beginning of column 74:2, 
the 334th word is the 86th word in the next column, jade. (2.) But if we take 523 
again, and deduct from it the same second subdivision, exclusive of the words in 
brackets and the additional hyphenated words, we have 356; and if again we com- 
mence to count from the top of column 74:2, but count in the words in brackets 
and carry the remainder over to the next column, again the count lights on the 
same 86th \^oxA~jade. (3.) And if we again take the first count above, 334, and 
modify it by deducting the modifier 30, we have left 304, and if we begin to count 



700 



THE CIPHER NARRji iTVE. 



from the bottom of the second subdivision of 74:2, counting up and forward, the 
304th word is the same 86th word — jade. (4.) And if we take 505 and commence 
to count from the end of the first subdivision of the same 74:2, and count down- 
ward, we have left 307; if we carry this to the middle of the next column, 75:1, and 
count upwards from the beginning of the second subdivision, we have 114 left, and 
this carried up from the end of the first subdivision, 75:1, counting in the bracketed 
words and additional hyphenated words, again brings us to the same word, jade. 
(5.) And if we go back to the second example above (523 — 167=356), and again 
begin at the top of 74:2, and count down, we have left 108; and this carried up the 
next column from the bottom of the first subdivision, not counting in the bracketed 
and hyphenated words, again brings us to the 86th ^oxA, jade. (6.) And if we take 
505 and count from the top of the third subdivision of 74:2 upward, we have 286 
left; and this, less 193, is 93, and this, carried down column i of page 75, count- 
ing in the words in brackets, falls again on the same 86th word, jade. (7.) And 
if we take 505 and deduct 167, we have left 338; modify this by deducting the modi- 
fier 50, and we have 288 left; carry this up through the first subdivision of column 
I of page 75, and we have 95 left; descend again down column i of page 75, but 
counting in this time the additional hyphenated as well as the bracketed words, and 
again we come to the 86th word, jade. There are other counts which produce the 
same result, but they are with root-numbers with which the reader is not so familiar 
as with the above. 

Here, then, are seven times where the same ^oxA, jade, is reached by seven 
different countings, used in seven different parts of the same Cipher narrative. 
One can conceive from this the careful adjustments to each other of pages, scenes, 
fragments of scenes, words, brackets and hyphens which were necessary to perfect 
this delicate piece of skeleton work, before Bacon set pen to paper to manipulate 
the external padding into a coherent play. And one can perceive, also, the extent 
of a Cipher narrative in which the Queen is so often referred to. The truth is, I 
give but fragments of the story. 

If the reader thinks that this is also accident, let him take some other numbers 
and see if he can make this word match with them. It is doubtful if he can find 
a single number (not a Cipher number) which can be made to agree, from the 
starting-point of any of these pages or subdivisions, with this \\ox<X, jade, so as to 
cohere precisely. I have tried it with many numbers without success. And it 
must be remembered that the seven numbers here used, and which do match with 
jade, hold an infinitesimally small proportion to all the combinations of figures 
which are possible even in groups of three each. It would be an Ossa of marvels 
piled on a Pelion of miracles if these seven figures should, by aeeident, be so pre- 
cisely adjusted to the size of the pages, scenes and fragments of scenes, and to the 
exact number of bracketed and hyphenated words therein, as to produce, by all 
these different countings, the same wioxdijade. 

And when we turn to the word old, which accompanies the word jade when 
applied to the Queen, we find the same significant adjustments; but not so numer- 
ous, for we have seen the \s ox A jade once applied to Shakspere's wife, and it is also 
applied in the Cipher story to a horse. 

(i.) If, for instance, we take 505 and deduct 254, the second subdivision of 75:1, 
we have left 251, a root-number which we shall find to be extensively used; we turn 
to 74:1, and the 251st word is old. (2.) If we take 505 and deduct 167, we have 
338; if we count in the 22 bracket and hyphenated words, this becomes 316; this, 
modified by deducting 50, becomes 266; and if we carry this down the first column 
of page 74, counting in the bracketed and hyphenated words, the 266th word is 



Page and 




Column. 




74:1 


old 


74:1 


old 


74:1 


old 



THE STORY OF SHAk'SPERE'S YOUTH. 701 

the 251st word, the same word old. (3.) If, again, we take 523 and deduct 218, 
(from 30 upward 74:2), we have 305 left; deduct the modifier 50, and we have 255 
left; this carried down 74:1, counting in the hyphenated words, brings us again to 
old. (4.) If we take 523 and deduct 167, we have 356, and, less the h Si h words, 
334; and/ less the modifier 30, it becomes 304: if we count down the 74:2 column, 
counting in the bracketed words, we have a remainder of 34, which, carried up the 
next column forward, brings us again to the same word, old. (5.) If we take 505 
and deduct 198, (50, 74:2 downward), we have 307; or, less the 22 bracket words, 
285; carry this again through 74:2 and we have a remainder of 37, which, carried 
up the next column forward, 74:1, counting in the hyphenated words, again brings 
us to the same word old. 

Let me put these remarkable results in regular order: 

Word. 
505—254=251. 351 

505—167=338—23 b & /;=316— 50=266— 15 /' & //= 351 
523—218=305-50=255-4/^=251. 251 

523—167=356—22 b & 7^=334— 30=304— 248=.';G— 

22/;=34. 284—34=250+1=251. 251 74:1 old 

505—198=307—22 b & //=285— 248=37. 284—37= 

347+1=248+3 //=251. 
523—167=356—23 b & /;=334— 248=86. 
523—167=356—248=108—22 b (74:2)=86. 
523—167=356—33 b& 7^=334— 30=304— 318=86. 
505—198=307—193=114 193— 114=79 +1=80 -h 

6A&//=86. 
523—167=356—248=108. 193—108=85+1=86. 
505—219=386—193=93—7 ^=86. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—9 b & 7^=86. 

And that these results are not accidental the reader can satisfy himself by ob- 
serving that every one of these old.^ and jndes comes out of 505 and 523; not one is 
derived from the other root-numbers 516 and 513. This shows that it is in the 
part of the story told by 505 and 523 the Queen is referred to as "the old jade." 
And see how completely some of these accord, the same root-number producing 
both words: 

528—167=356—22 b & 7/=334— 30=804— 248=56— 

22^=34. 284—34=250+1=251. 251 74:1 old 

523— 167=356— 23/; &7f=334— 30=304— 318=86. 86 75:1 jade 

Again: 

505—198=307—33 b & 7/=385— 348=37 

347+1=348+3 7/=351. 
505—198=307—33/' & //=385— 198=87— 1=86. 



351 


74:1 


old 


86 


75:1 


jade 


86 


75:1 


jade 


86 


75:1 


jade 


86 


75:1 


jade 


86 


75:1 


jade 


86 


75:1 


jade 


86 


75:1 


jade 



284—37= 










351 


74:1 


old 


1=86. 


86 


75:1 


jade 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE PURPOSES OF THE PLA VS. 

Now 1 see 

The bottom of your purpose. 

Airs Welltliat Ends Well, Hi, 7. 

CECIL tells the Queen that, having heard that the Essex party 
were representing the deposition and murder of Richard II. 
on the stage, and cheering uproariously at every "hit," even as the 
liberty-loving German students in a later age applauded every preg- 
nant sentence in Schiller's play of Hie J^o/wrs, he sent a friend 
to ascertain the facts, who returned with the statement that the 
reports were all true. And we have the following sentence, descrip- 
tive of the scene on the death of the King, who was murdered at 
Pomfret by Sir Pierce of Exton, as represented in the last act of 
the play of Richard II .: 

523 356 356 356 

167 31 h (167) 1 // (167) 22 /' & h (167) 

356 335 355 



356—22 b & //=334— 193=141— 15 /> & //=126. 
356— 50=306— 284=32+193=215— 2 //=213. 
356— 22(5 & //=334— 248=86— 1 //=85. 
356—254=102—15 b & //=87. 448-87=3614-1 = 
356—22 i> & //=334— 248=86. 448—86=362+1= 
356—22 d & /^=334— 248=86. 384-86=198 + 1= 

199 + 6 //=205. 205 74:1 fell 

856—30=326—193=133—15 A & /^ =118. 498—118= 

380+1=381. 
356—22 /' & //=334— 50=284— 17 /' & /^=2()7. 
356—30=326—50=276. 447—276=171 + 1=172+ 

15 /, & /^=187. 
356—30=326—193=133. 498—133=365 + 1=366. 
356—1 //=355— 248=107— 22/^(74 :2)=85. 284—85= 

199+1=200+6/^=206. 
356—22 /> & //=334— 193=141— 15 /- & //=126. 
356—23' b & //=334— 348=86— 3 /'=83. 

702 



334 






Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




136 


75:3 


But 


213 


75:1 


when 


85 


75:1 


poor 


363 


76:1 


King 


363 


76:1 


Richard 



381 


76:1 


a 


267 


76:1 


corpse 


187 


75:1 


at 


366 


76:1 


Pomfret, 


206 


74:1 


under 


126 


74:1 


uncounted 


83 


76:1 


blows, 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PLA YS. 



703 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




271 
75 


74:1 
75:1 


they 
make 


358 


76:1 


the 


126 


76:1 


most 


76 


74:1 


fearful 


200 


74:1 


noise; 


108 
261 


75:1 

74:1 


again 
and 


108 
=153 


75:1 
75:1 


again 
it 


76 


74:2 


broke 


33 


74:2 


forth; 


413 


76:1 


it 


306 


76:1 


seemed 



323 



129 



76:1 



75:1 



as 



if 



356—22 /' & //=334— 50=284— 248=36— 22 /; (74:2)= 

14. 284—14=270+1=271. 
356—1 //=335— 248=107— 22 l> (74:2)=85— 10 /;=75. 
356— 22 <^& //=334— 193=141. 498—141=357+1= 
356—22 h & 7^=334—193=141-15 b&/t=\2Q. 
356—21 /;=335— 248=87— 11 /- & /^=76. 
356—1 7^=355- 248=107— 22 /;=85. 284—85=199 

+ 1=200. 
356—248=108. 

356—30=326—50=276—15 l> & 7/=261. 
356—22 /> & 7;=334— 248=86. 193—86=107 + 1 = 
356—22=326—284=42. 193—42=151 + 1=152+1 /i= 
356—21 /;=335— 284=51— 18 d & 7/=33 + 50=83— 

7 /i= 76. 
356—21 ^'=335-284=51-18 /> & 7/=33. 
356—22 /> & 7/=334— 248=86. 498—86=412+1= 
356—50=306. 
356—22 /; & 7/=334— 193=141— 15 /> & 7/=120. 448— 

126=322+1=323. 
356—22 /> & 7/=334— 193=141. 508—141=367+1 

65=128 + 1=129 
356—30=326—50=276—248=28—22 /^=6. 284— 

6=278+1=279. 
356—50=306—13 /;=293. 
356—30=326—50=276—253=23—15 /■ & 7/=8. 448— 

8=440+1=441. 
356—30=326—50=276. 284—276=8+1=9. 

The reader will note that every word here is the 356th word; and the figures at 
the beginning of the chapter show how that number is obtained. He will further 
observe the constant recurrence of the same terminal numbers, 86, 133, loS, 141, 
276, and their modifications. It would require some art, in any other writing, to pick 
out the words of such a coherent sentence without any arithmetical limitations what- 
ever, simply taking a word here and there where you find it; but when you obtain 
every word of such a sentence as the above in arithmetical order, each one being 
the 356th from certain points of departure, it surely cannot be accident. 

But Cecil goes on still further to give his views of the purposes of the play of 
Richard II. And here we still have the same original root-number, and we find the 
same terminal numbers constantly recurring, to-vvit, 108, 141, 133, etc., and again 
they work out a coherent narrative which holds due relation to the whole Cipher 
story. 

356—248=108. 193—108=85+1=86+3 /'=89. 

356—30=326—192=134. 

356—22/. & 7/=334— 50=284— 12 7;=272. 

356—248=108—7 /'=101. 

35&— 22 /> & 7^=334—193=141—15 h & 7^=126. 284— 

126=158+1=159. 
356—1 7/=355— 248=107. 284—107=177 + 1=178. 
356— 17/=355— 248=107. 284—107=177+1=178+ 

6 7/=184. 



279 


74:1 


they 


293 


75:1 


would 


441 


76:1 


never 


9 


74:1 


stop. 



89 


75:1 


The 


134 


74:1 


play 


272 


76:1 


shows 


101 


75:1 


the • 


159 


74:1 


victory 


178 


74:1 


of 



184 



r4:l 



rebels 



704 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Word. 
356—1 //=355— 50=305— 193=113— 15/' & //=97— 

5/,&/^=92. 92 

356— 50=306— 198=1 13— 15 /' & //=98— 3 <^=95. 95 
356—30=336—193=133—15 b & /,=118— 50=68. 284 

—68=216+1=317+6/^=323. 223 

356—348=108—11 /; & //=97. 97 
356_32 I> & //=334— 254=80— 15 /> & //=65. 498—65 

=433-1-1=434. 434 

356—248=108. 108 

356—50=306. 448— 306=142-^1=143-^10 /^& //= 153 

356—248=108—3 /i (74:3)=106. 106 

356^33 /> & 7^=334—354=80—15 /^ & /^=65. 65 

356—33 b & //=334— 354=80. 80 

356—1 /,=355— 348=107. 107 

356—248=108. 284— 108=176+1=177+6 //=183. 183 

356—248=108. 384—108=176+1=177. 177 

356— 1 //=355— 348=107. 284—107=177+1=178. 178 
356—1 //=355— 348=107— 3 A (74:3)=105. 384— 

105=179+1=180. 180 

356—32 /> & //=334— 30=304— 49=355— 7 /> & /^=348. 348 

356—1 //=355— 30=335— 384=41— 7 // (74 : 1 )=34. 34 

356—33 /; & 7^=334—50=384. 384—384=0 + 1=1 . 1 

35&— 348=108— 10 /;=98. 98 



Page and 

Column. 



76:1 
76:1 

74:1 
74:1 

74:1 
74:1 
76:1 
74:1 
75:3 
75:3 
74:1 
74:1 
74:1 
74:1 

74:1 
76:1 
74.3 
74:1 



74:1 



o er 
an 

anointed 
tyrant; 

and 

by 
this 
pipe 

he 

hath 

blown 

the 

flame 

of 

rebellion 

almost 

into 

open 

war. 



It may be asked why the root-number (523 — 167=) 356 is here continuous, 
while in some of our former examples it alternated with (505 — 167=) 338; but it 
would appear, from my researches, that it is only at the beginning that this alterna- 
tion exists; and that, as the Cipher progresses, it diverges, and follows out one of 
the root-numbers after another to its ramifications: thus 338 will be found, after a 
time, to produce a story different from, but connected with, that told by 356. The 
process might be compared to a nimble squirrel on two branches of a tree, grow- 
ing out of the same portion of the trunk. For a time it leaps from branch to 
branch; then, as they widen out, it follows the ramifications of one branch to the 
end. 

The reader will also note that all the story we have thus far given is derived 
from three pages, 74, 75 and 76; and most of it is from pages 74 and 75; and it will 
be found, as we proceed, that we have not e.xhausted one-tenth of the possibilities 
of these pages. It would be marvelous if we had been able to make such con- 
nected grammatical and historical sentences out of a dozen pages; it is still more 
marvelous that they have been found in two or three. We have on these three 
pages not only the names of Marhnve, and Arc Iter ■BlViA Cecil and Shak'st-spur, Hay- 
ward and the old jade, but the name of A'ing Richai'd and Pom fret and King Joint, 
and, as we will see, the Contention of York and Lancaster, and a number of other 
typical words, which, if there is no Cipher, could only have coincided here by a species 
of miracle. I am aware that the hypercritical will say, as has been intimated already, 
that the foregoing results are due to my " ingenuity; " but ingenuity cannot create 
the very significant words which are shown to exist in the text, on these pages 74, 
75 and 76, together with Bacon, Bacons, St. Albans, Gray's Inn, etc., which ap- 
pear near at hand. Those words were there two hundred years before I was born. 

We have seen that 356, modified by carrying it through column 74:2, produced 
the statement that Bacon had used the play of Richard II. as a pipe wherewith to 



THE PURPOSES OE THE PLA VS. 



705 



blow the flame of rebellion almost into open war. Now let us take the very next 
portion of the text which follows column 74:2, to-wit, the first subdivision of 75:1, 
and we have results running in the same direction of thought, viz.: that Bacon 
had also been trying to poison the mind of the multitude with irreligious views. 
Surely, such connected thoughts could not, by accident, run out of the same root- 
numbers, counting, in the one instance, from the top of one column, and, in the 
other instance, from the top or middle of the next column. 

And it will also be observed that the statements here made agree precisely with 
what I have shown, in the first part of this book, as to Bacon's early religious 
views, and the treasonable purposes of some of the plays; and also with the facts 
revealed on the trial of Essex as to the conspirators hiring the actors to enact this 
very play of Richard /I., so that they might gloat their eyes with the sight of a 
tragedy on the mimic stage which they hoped to bring into effect very soon upon 
the stage of the world. It follows that partisans and conspirators, assembled for 
such a purpose, would act very much as the Cipher story describes. 



356—21 /;=335— 284=51. 248—51=197+1=198 + 

2 ^ & //=200. 
356_21 /-=335— 193=142. 284—142=142+1=143. 
356—30=326—284=42—7 h (74:1)=37. 
356—193=163—15 /' & //=148. 508—148=360+1= 
356—30=326—193=133—15 /- & //=118. 508—118= 

390 + 1=391+3^=394. 
356—193=163—15 /; & //=148. 508—148=360+1= 

361+4 <^& //=365. 
356—50=306—146 (76:2) =160. 
356—30=326—50 (76:1)=276— 145=131— 5 l> & //= 
356—1 k (74:2)=355— 50=305— 146=159. 498—159= 

339 + 1=340. 
356—30=326—145=131. 577—131=446+1=447+ 

ll/'&//=461. 
3,56—30=326—145=131—3 /'=128. 
356—193=163. 498—163=335+1=336. 
356—1 /;=855— 80=325— 193=132— 15 A &/i=117. 
356—30=326—146=180—3 l> (146)=177— 9 b & /^= 
356—50=306—146=160—3 l> (146)=157. 
356—30=326—146=180—3 b (146)=177. 448—177= 

271 + 1=272+2 ^=274. 
356— 30=326— 193=133— 15^ & 7^=118 + 162 (78:1)= 
356—30=326. 

356—50=306—145=161. 498—161=337 + 1=338. 
356—50=306. 498—306=192+1=193+10 b & h= 
3.56—30=326—193=133. 456 + 133=590. 
356—30=326—193=133. 
356—30=326—50=276—193=83—15 b & //=68— 

50(76:1)=18— 1 //=17. 
356—193=163. 448—163=285+1=286. 
356—30=326—193=133—15=118—50 (76:1) = 

68. 508—68=440+1 + 1 7^=442. 
356—193=163. 



Word. 

200 

143 

37 

361 

394 



Page and 
Column. 



340 



74:2 
74:1 

74:2 
76:2 

75:2 



These 

well-known 

plays 

have 



r6:l 



even 



365 


75:2 


made 


160 


77:1 


the 


126 


76:1 


most 



holy 



(461) 


77:1 


matters 


128 


76:1 


of 


336 


76:1 


religion, 


117 


75:2 


which 


168 


76:1 


all 


157 


77:1 


good 


274 


76:1 


men 


280 


78:1 


hold 


326 


76:1 


in 


338 


76:1 


sincere 


203 


76:1 


respect, 


590 


76:2 


subjects 


133 


76:2 


for 


17 


76:2 


laughter; 


286 


76:1 


their 


442 


75:2 


aim 


163 


75:2 


being. 



7o6 



THE CJPIIER NARRATIVE. 



356—30=326— 
131=317+ 
356—193=163. 
356—19 b & //=: 
356—253=103. 
356—22 i> & h= 
356—193=163. 
356—193=163. 
356—193=163- 
356—193=163- 
356—23 b & Ji= 
356—193=163. 
356—22 b & //= 
356—21 /;=335 
356—21 /;=335 



50(76:1)=276— 145=-131. 448— 
1=318. 

508—163=345+2 //=347. 
337. 

=334—193=141. 

508—163=345+1=346. 

284-^163=121 + 1=122. 
-15 b & //=148. 498—148=350+1= 
-50 (74:2)=113. 
=334—193=141. 498—141=357 + 1= 

284—163=121 + 1=122+7 //=]29. 
334—193=141—11 b & //=130. 
—193=142—11 b & //=131. 
—193=142—10 /;=132. 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




318 


76:1 


it 


348 


75:2 


is 


337 
103 


7:61 
76:1 


supposed, 
to 


141 


74:1 


thus 


346 
122 


75:2 
74:1 


poison 
the 


351 


76:1 


mind 


113 


74:1 


of 


358 


75:2 


the 


129 


74:1 


still 


130 


74:1 


discordant, 


131 
132 


74:1 
74:1 


wavering 
multitude. 



The reader will here observe that every word of the above sentence is the 356th 
word from certain well-defined starting-points; just as every word of the last sen- 
tence was also derived, in the same way, from 356. He will also observe that 356 
— 248=108, and, as 108 produced so many of the words touching the blowing of 
the flame of rebellion into open war, so here 356 — 193=163 and 356 — 193=163 — 
je^ b& /i=l4?i produce the significant words being, poison, mind, religion, etc. And 
what is the difference between these numbers 108 and 163? Simply this, — that 
108 is 356 less the second column of page 74; and 163 is 356 less the next subdi- 
vision of the text — the first subdivision of column i of page 75; so that the ends 
of these two fragments, which produce these two coherent parts of the same state- 
ment, as to the purposes of the Plays, touch each other. 

And it will be remembered, as I have shown heretofore, that Afeasuj-e for Meas- 
ure contained many irreligious utterances; and that the character of Sir John Old- 
castle was regarded, by the court, as a reflection on Protestantism, and the author 
of the play was compelled to change the name of the character to Sir John Falstaff. 
But the significant utterances growing out of the same root-number (356). and 
the same parts of the same columns, do not end here. The purposes of the Plays 
are still further discussed by Cecil, and he makes an assertion as-to the intents of 
the conspirators which is amply confirmed by the subsequent insurrection which 
cost Essex his head. 



356—50=306—146=160—3 /' (146)=157. 448—157= 

291 + 1=292. 292 76:1 

356—253=103. 284—103=181 + 1=182+6/^=188. 188 74:1 

3,56—248=108. 448—108=340+1=341. 341 76:1 
356—22 b & 7^=334— 50=284— 193=91. 498—91= 

407+1=408. 408 76:1 

356—30=326—254=72—10 /^=62. 62 74:1 

356—253=103—1 //=102. 102 75:1 

356—253=103. 498—103=395+1=396. 396 76:1 

356—146=210. 284—210=74+1=75. 75 74:1 
356-30=326—193=133—15=118. 498—118=380+ 

1=381. 381 76:1 

356. 356 76:1 

356—50=306—146=160. 498—160=338+1=339. 339 76:1 



They 

mean 

in 

this 
covert 

way 

to 
make 



rising 
and 



THE PURPOSES OF THE PL A VS. 



707 



Word. 



480 



356—22 d & /z=334— 254=80— 50 (76:1)=30. 508— 

30=478+1=479+1 7^=480. 
356—23 d ^ //=334— 50=284— 193=91. 498—91= 

407+1=408. 
356—253=103—15 /' & //=88. 448—88=360+1= 
356—22 i & //=334— 253=81— 15 d & /i=66. 448— 

66=482+1=483. 
356—254=102. 448—102=346+1=347.' 
356—21 <^=335— 50=285— 145=140. 498—140= 

358—9=359. 359 



Page and 
Column. 



in:^ 



flood 



408 


76:1 


this 


361 


76:1 


fair 


483 


76:1 


land 


347 


76:1 


with 



76:1 blood, 



The text will show the reader that the word rising was the usual expression in 
that day for insurrection. 

But Cecil thinks the writer of the Plays intends not only to make rebels, but 
infidels, of those who witness the representation of them on the stage; and we have 
this significant utterance: 

356—30=326—193=133—15 /; & 7^=118. 508—118= 

390+1=391+4 ,^&7/=395. 395 75:2 so 

356— 50 (76:1)=306— 146=160. 160 76:1 that 

356— 22 ^& 7;=334— 254=80— 50 { 76:1 )=30— 17^=29. 29 76:2 not 

356— 22 7; &7;=334— 254=80— 50 (76:1 )=30. 30 76:2 only 

356—50=306—146=160. 448—160=288+1=289. 289 76:1 their 

356— 19;:5=163. 448— 163=285+1=286+1 7;=287. 287 76:1 bodies, 

356— 22 7- & 7^=334—253=81. 81 75:2 but 

356—193=163. 448—163=285+1=286. 286 76:1 their 
356—50=306—146=160. 448—160=288+1=289 

+ 1 7^=290. 290 76:1 souls, 

356— 253=103— 15^ &7/=88— 2 7/=86. 86 76:1 might 

356— 30=326— 50 (76:1 )=276— 145=131. 131 77:1 be 

356—30=326. 603—326=277—1=278—8^=286. 286 76:2 damned. 

Observe here how the root-numbers bring out the words: 356 carried forward 
through the second subdivision of 76:2 (146) and brought back and carried up the 
column 76:1 yields their, and, counting in the one hyphenated word, soitis; while 
the same 356 carried through the first subdivision of 75:2 (193) and taken up the 
same column 76:1 produces t/ieir, and, counting in that same one hyphenated 
word, produces bodies. 

And then we have this further sentence, showing that Essex was supposed to 
be represented on the stage in the popular character of Harry Monmouth, Prince 
of Wales, in the Plays of ist and 2d Henry /T. 

516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327—30=297-145= 

152— 3 <^ (145)=149. 284—149=135+1=136. 136 

516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327-30=297-145= 

152—3 b (145)=149— 1 7/=148. 148 

516— 167=349— 22^ & 7^=327-50=277-145 (76:2) 

=132—3 b (145)=129— 11 b & 7/=118. 118 

516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327— 248=79— 22=57— 7 /'= 50 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327-284=43. '?48— 43 

=205+1=206. 206 



74:1 


It 


74:2 


is 


74:1 


plain 


75:1 


that 



74:2 



my 



7o8 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



516—167=349—22 b & /,=327— 284=43— 7 /i (284)^ 

516—167=349—22 /> & /^=327— 284=43. 

516— 167=349— 22^ & /^=327— 284=43— 7 /^ (284)= 

36. 237—36=201 + 1=202. 
516— 167=349— 22/^ & /^=327— 219 (74:2)=108— 21 /> 

(219)=87. 284—87=197+1=198. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 193=134. 
516—167=349—22 1> & 7^=327—193=134—15 b & /i= 

119. 248— 119=129+1=130— 15 /;=145. 
516— 167=349— 22^ & 7^=327— 219 (74:2(=108— 

21 d (219)=87. 284—87=197+ 1=198+6 7^= 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327—50=277—145 (76:2) 

=132—3^=129. 248—129=119+1=120. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7^=327-284=43. 
516—167=349—22 i & 7^=327—284=43. 237—43= 

194+1=195. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7/=327— 193=134— 15 d & 7/= 

119. 248—119=129+1=130. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327— 30=297— 145 (76:2) 

=152—28=124. 588—124=464+1=465. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7^=327-193=134. 248—134 

=114+1=115. 
516—167=349—22 /> & 7^=327—193=134—15 b & h= 

119. 248— 119=129+1=130+16 /;&7/=146. 
516— 167=349— 22^ & 7/=327 -30=297— 145 (76:2)= 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




:36. 36 


73:2 


Lord 


43 


73:1 


the 



202 



465 
115 

146 

152 



73:2 



Earl 



198 


74:1 


is 


134 


74:2 


young 


145 


74:2 


Harry 


204 


74:1 


Monmouth, 


120 


74:2 


Prince 


43 


73:2 


of 


195 


73:2 


Wales, 


130 


74:2 


the 



72:2 

74:2 

74:2 
74:2 



Duke 



of 



Monmouth's 
son. 



It will be observed here that every word grows out of the same root-number, 
327 (516 — 167=349 — 22 b& h='i^i). Here is certainly a most astonishing array of 
words to occur accidentally. 

The reader may say to himself, that such curious words as are found in these 
three pages of this play occur in all writings; but this is not the fact. For the pur- 
pose of testing the question I turned to Lord Byron's great drama, Manf7-ed. It is 
the work of a lofty genius, as the Plays are; it contains much exquisite poetry, as 
do the Plays; it is made up altogether of conversations between the characters, 
as are the Plays. Yet I failed to find in it all a single shake — spzir — jade — cur- 
tain — piay — stage — scene — act — contention, or any other of the significant words 
out of which such a narrative as the above could be constructed. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE QUEEN BE A TS HA YIVARD. 

Thou vinew'dst leaven, speak ! 
I will beat thee into handsomeness. 

Troilus atui Cressida, ii, i. 

IN the following examples I think the critical reader will see con- 
clusive evidence of the existence of a Cipher. The root-num- 
bers go out from the beginning and end of that middle subdivision 
of 74:2 which we have already seen producing the story of Marlowe 
.and of Shakspere's youth: that is to say, if we go down from the 
top of that subdivision we have 198 words to the bottom of the 
column; if we go up from the bottom of that subdivision, or, strictly 
speaking, from the top of the third subdivision, we have 219 words; 
and all this story which follows grows out of 523 and 505 modified 
by deducting 198 or 219, and moving forward to the next column, 
and backward or forward from the end of the scene. 

And when we come to observe how every word that goes out of 
these roots is utilized in the Cipher story, and also to note how the 
same numbers produce so many significant words, it seems to me 
that all incredulity must disappear. Take, for Instance, the root- 
number 505 — 219=286 — 193 = 93; the number 93 gives us (75:2 
•down) sullen; (76:1 up) rising; (75:1 down) starting; (75:2 n^p) Joints; 
(75:1 up) blow; (75:1 down) J^li/s the bracket words. Jade; (75:1 up 
from 193) plus the b &h words. Ha, the first part of the name of 
Hayward; (75:1 down from 193) Curtain, the name of the play-house; 
plus the bracket words, woe-be-gone, describing Hayward's appear- 
ance. In the same way the root-number 505 — 198 = 307 produces 
(up 75:2) crutch and (up 75:1) end; while 286 — 50 = 236 from the end 
of the scene forward and backward yield us steeled; and down 75:2 
it produces //■/<?//(/, alluding to Hayward. In fact, if the reader will 
•carefully study the examples that follow he must conclude that not 
•only is there a Cipher here, but that the rule is as stated, with the 

709 



7IO 



THE LTPHEK NARRA TIVE. 



exception perliaps of the position of some of the minor words, which 
may be displaced. In fact, the words that flow out of these 
root-numbers tell the story I have given, and could scarcely be 
made to tell anything else. 

Hayward has evidently been imprisoned for some time when 
brought before the Queen; he attempts to defend his dedication of 
the Life of Henry IV. to Essex by praising the latter. This in- 
furiates the Queen, and the scene follows which is described: 



316 



533—219=304—22^=282. 284—282=2+1=3+7//= 10 

505— 21 9=286— 1 93=93. 

523—219=304—22 /; & //=282— 248=34. 284—34= 

250—1=251. 
505—219=286—193=93—7 /;=86. 
505—219=286—21 6=265—193=72—15 b & /t=57. 
?23—319=304— 254=50— 15 b & //=35. 248—35= 

213+1=214+2 b& //=216. 
523—219=304—50=254—193=61. 508—61=447+ 

1=448 + l/;=449. 
505—198=307—193=114. 193—114=79+1=80. 
523—219=304—50=254—193=61—15 b & //^46 

^193=239. 
523—219=304—50=254—193=61—15 b & //=46. 

508—46=462+1=463. 
523—219=304—50=254—193—61—15 b & //=46. 

508—46=462+1=463+1 //=464. 
505—219=286—21 //=265— 193=72— 15 /;& //=57. 
523—219=304—50=254—193=61—15 b & //=46+ 

193=239—5 b & /4=234. 
523—219=304—50=254—193=61. 508—61=447+1 
505—219=286—193=93—15 b & //=78. 508—78= 

430+1=431 + 1 //=432. 
505—219=286—193=93—50 (76:1)=43. 508—43= 

465 + 1=466. 
505—198=307—193=114. 

505—219=286—193=93. 498—93=405+1=406. 
505—198=307—193=114—15 b & //=99. 284—99= 

185 + 1=186. 
505—219=286—193=93. 448—93=355—1=356. 
523—219=304—50=254—10 /;=244. 
505— 219=286— 19c=93— 15 b & /^=78. 498—78= 

420+1=421. 
505—21 9=286—1 93=93. 

523—198=325—2 b (74 :2)=323— 248=75— 1 //=74. 
505— 219=286— 50=236— 50=186— 20 /;=166. 
505—219=286—193=93. 193—93=100+1=101 + 

6 ^ & //=107. 
523—198=825—103=132. 448—132=316+1=317. 



i^ord. 


Pag^e and 
Column. 




10 


74:1 


The 


93 


75:2 


sullen 


251 


74:1 


old 


86 

57 


75:1 
75:2 


jade 
doth 



432 



74:2 



75:2 



listen 



449 


75:2 


■with 


80 


75:1 


the 


239 


75:1 


ugliest 


463 


75:2 


frown 


464 


75:2 


upon 


57 


76:2 


her 


234 


75:1 


hateful 


=448 


75:2 


brows. 



too 



466 


75:2 


enraged 


114 


75:2 


to 


406 


76:1 


speak; 


189 


74:1 


but, 


356 


76:1 


rising 


244 


76:1 


up 


421 


76:1 


and 


93 


75:1 


starting 


74 


75:1 


forwards^ 


166 


75:2 


took 


107 


75:1 


Ha ^ 


317 


76:1 


word ^ 



THE QUEEN BE A TS I/A YWAJiD. 



yii 



505—219=286—50=236—193=43. 603—43=560+1= 
505—219=286—193=93—15 b & //=78. 448—78= 

370+1=371. 
505—219=286—50=236—146=90—3 d (146)=87. 
505—219=286—193=93—15 l> & /t=78. 498—78= 

420+1=421. 
505—219=286—30=256. 448—256=192+1=193+ 

8/'=201. 
523—198=325—254=71+458=529—3 d=52Q. 
523— 198=325— 193=132— 15 ^& //=1 17—7 /;=110. 
505—219=286—21 /^=265— 49 (76:1)=216. 508—216= 

292+1=293+6 />=299. 
523—219=304—218 (74:2)=86. 284—86=198+1= 
505—219=286—21 ^=265—49 (76:1)=216. 508— 

216=292+1=293. 
523—198=325—193=132—15 /; & 7^=117. 193— 

117=76 + 1=77+1/^=78. 
505—198=307—193=114—15 d & //=99— 7 ^=92. 
523—219=304—22 d & 7^=282. 447—282=165 + 

16A&//=171. 
505—198=307—193=114—15 d & A=99. 193—99= 

94+1=95+3^=98. 
523—198=325—248=77. 
523—198=325—193=132. 
505—198=307—193=114—15 d & 7^=99. 193—99= 

94-^ 1=95+6 /7& 7^=101. 
505—219=286—21 /;=265— 49 (76:1)=216. 
505—198=307—50=257—193=64—15 /.& 7^=49+ 

193=242. 
523—198=325—248=77. 447—77=370+1=371+3= 
505—219=286—30=256. 
505—219=286—30=256—4 7^=251 
523—219=304—218 (74:2)=86. 
523—198=325—2 7/ (198)=323— 248=75. 
505—198=307—193=114. 508—114=394+1=395 

+ 17^=396. 
523—219=304—218 (74:2)=86— 1 7^=85. 
523—219=304—193=1 1 1 . 
505—198=307—193=114—15 i> & 7/=99. 
523— 1 98=325— 50=275— 1 93=82 . 
523—219=304—218 (74-2)=86— 10 -5=76. 
505—219=280-193=93. 447—93=354+1=355. 
523—219=304—218 (74:2)=86. 
523—198=325—193=132—15 /; & 7^=117. 193—117 

=76+1=77+3(5=80. 
505— 219=286— 50=236— 50 (76:1)=186. 
505—198=307—193=114—15 d & 7^=99. 447—99= 

348+1=349. 
523— 198=325— 193=132— 15^ & 7/=117. 193—117= 

76+l=77+6<5&7/=83. 



Word. 
=561 

371 

87 

421 



Page and 
Column, 

76:2 



76:1 

77:1 



293 

78 
92 

171 

98 

77 
132 

101 
216 

242 

=374 

256 

251 

86 

75 

396 
85 
11 
99 
82 
76 

355 
86 

80 
186 

349 

83 



76:1 



75:2 

75:1 
75-1 

75:1 

75:1 
76:2 

75:2 

75:1 
75:2 

75:1 
75:1 
74:1 
74:1 

75:1 
75:1 

75:2 
75:1 
75:1 
75:2 

75:2 
74:1 
75:1 
74:1 

75:1 
75:2 

75:1 

75:1 



by 

his 
throat 

and 



201 


76:1 


choked 


526 


76:2 


him. 


110 


75:1 


He 


299 


75:2 


took 


199 


74:1 


to 



his 

heels 
and 

■was 

running 
off 
in 

the 
greatest 

fright, 

but 

the 

old 

jade 

struck 

my 

poor 

young 

friend 

a 

fearful 

blow 

with 

the 
steeled 

end 

of 



712 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



508—111=397+1=398. 
508—111=397+1=398 



508- 
508- 



-114=394+1=395. 
-114=394+1=395 

603—43=560 



577—157 



-112 



193—99 



533— 21 9=304— 50=254. 

523—219^304—193=111. 498—111=387+1=388. 
505— 198=307— 193=1 14— 15 b & //=99. 508—99= 

.109—1=310. 
523— 198=325— 193=132— 15 <5& //=1 17. 117—9= 
505— 219=286— 193=93-1 7^=92. 
523—219=304—218 (74:2)=86. 193— 86=107 -^l= 
523—219=304—193=111. 193—111=82 + 1=83+1 1 
523— 198=307— 2/^ (198)=305— 193=112. 508—112= 

396+1=397. 
523—218=304—193=111. 
533— 318=304— 1 93=1 1 1 . 

+ 1/^=399. 
505—198=307—193=114 
505— 198=307— 1 93=1 14. 

+3 ^=(398). 
505—219=286—50=236—193=43 

+ 1=551. 
523—219=304—1 // (319)=303— 146=157. 

=420+1=421. 
523—219=304—193=111. 
505—198=307—2 /> (198)=305— 193=112. 508 

=396+l + /'=(397). 
505— 198=307— 193=114— 15 ^& //=99. 

=94+1=95. 
505—198=307—193=114—10 <5=104. 
523—198=325—254=71. 
523—198=325—248=77—9 d & /i=QS. 
523—219=304—50=354—13 /.=241. 
523—198=325—193=132—15 /> & //=117. 

340+1 + 1 //=342. 
505— 2 1 9=286—50=236 . 
505+198=307—193=114—2 /'=112. 
523—198=325—248=77. 
523—319=304—193=111. 193—111=83+1=83+ 

6 ^ & /i=89. 
533—219=304—218 (74 :2)=86— 3^=83. 
505—219=286—50=236—2 /z=234. 
523—198=325-193=133. 508—132=376+1=377. 
505—219=304—22 /; & 7^=282. 447—282=165+1= 
523—198=325—2 7^ ( 74 :2)=323— 193=130. 508—130 

=378+ 1=379+4 z!-* //=383. 
505—219=286—193=93. 508—93=415+1=416. 
523—198=325—248=87—2 /;=75— 9 /; & 7/=66. 
505—219=286—193=93. 193— 93=100+1=101 + 1 7/= 
523— 198=825— 2/' (74 :2)=323— 193=130. 508—130 

=378+1=379. 
523— 198=325— 145=180— 49 (76:1)=131. 
505—319=286—30=256. 448—256=192+1=193. 
505—219=286—50=236—146=90—3 /^=87. 577— 
87=490+1=491. 



Word. 

354 


Page and 

Column. 

75:1 


the 


388 


76:1 


great 


410 


75:3 


crutch, 


108 
92 


75:1 
75:1 


again 
and 


108 
=84 


75:1 

75:1 


again. 
His 


397 


75:2 


limbs 


398 


75:2 


being 


399 


75:2 


now 


395 


75:2 


so 



(398) 

561 

421 
111 

(397) 

95 

104 

71 

68 

241 



457—117= 



342 
236 
113 

77 

89 

83 

234 

377 

166 

383 

416 

66 

=103 

379 

131 
193 

491 



75:3 weakened 



76:2 



by 



77:1 imprisonment 
74:2 and 



75:2 

75:1 
74:1 
75:2 

75:1 
75:1 

76:2 
76:1 
75:2 

75:3 

75:1 
76:1 
74:1 
75:3 
75:1 

75:2 

75:2 
75:1 
75:1 

75:3 
75:3 



I 1 : 1 



grief, 

he 

is 

not 

able 

to 

stand 

the 
force 

of 

the 
blows; 

the 
hinges 

of 

his 

joints 

gave 

way 

under 
him; 
and 

he 




QUEEN ELIZABETH. 



THE QUEEN BEATS HA YWARD. 



713 



Pag-e and 
Word. Column. 

533—219=304—218 (74:2)=86. 284—86=198+1= 

199+6 //=205. 205 74:1 fell 
523— 198=325— 193=132— 15 <^&//=117. 498—117 

=381+1=382. 382 76:1 bleeding 

505—198=307. 307 76:1 on 

523—198=325—248=77—7^=70. 70 75:1 the 

523—198=325—193=132. 498—132=366+1=367. 367 76:1 stones. 

I am not proceeding in the historical order of the narrative. We first have the 
account of Hayward being brought before the Queen. It is in the orchard of the 
royal palace. The Queen and Cecil assail him fiercely about the dedication of his 
History of Henry IV. to Essex. The name of Cecil is thus formed: 

523— 198 {74:2)=325. 498— 325=173+1=174+8 (^= 182 76:1 Seas J 

505— 198 (74 :2)=307— 254=53. 53 75:1 ill \ 



These are the same root-numbers, 325 and 307, which we saw running together 
in the previous examples; and the primary root-numbers, 523 and 505, are the same 
which we have seen alternating together through whole columns of examples. The 
point of departure is the same, to-wit, from the end of the first subdivision of 74:2, 
at the 50th word; there are 248 words in the column, and 50 from 248 leaves igS. 
In the first instance the root-number 325 is carried to the bottom of column i of 
page 75 and up the column; in the other instance it is taken to the middle of 75:1, 
thence doivn, thence returning down the same column. 

And we find then this sentence: 



505—219=286—22 b & //=264— 193=71— 2 //=69. 
505—219=286—22 b & //=264. 
505—219=286—22 /; & //=264— 248 (74:2)=16. 
505—219=286—22 b & /;=264— 30=234. 448—234= 

214+1=215. 
505—219=286—22 /' & /;=264. 498—264=234+1= 
505—219=286—22 b & //=264. 498—264=234— 

50=184+1=185 + 2 //=187. 
505—219=286—22 b & //=264— 193=71. 447—71= 

376 + l=377+3/;=380. 
505—219=286—22 /; & //=264— 30=234— 10 /^=224. 
505—219=286—22 /; & //=264— 13 /^=251 . 
505—219=286—22 b & //=264— 50=214. 447—214= 

233+1=234+2 //=236. 
505—219=286—22 /; & //=264— 50=214. 
505—219=286—22 b & //=264— 193=71— 15 b & //= 

56. 248— 56=192 + 1=193+2 /; & 7^=195. 
505—219=286—22 b & /^=264— 193=71— 15 b & h= 

56. 248—56=192+1=193. 
505—219=286—22 b & //=264. 447—264=183+1= 
505—219=286—22 b & /;=264— 193=71 . 447—71= 

376+1=377. 
505—219=286—22 b & //=264— 193=71— 1 //=70. 
505—219=286-22 b & /;=264— 254=10. 



69 

264 
16 

215 
235 

187 

380 
224 
251 

236 
214 

195 



76:1 

75:1 
75:1 

76:1 
76:1 



6:1 



75:1 
75:1 
75:1 

75:1 
75:1 

74:2 



said 
to 

him: 

Come, 
speak 

out. 

Why 
didst 
thou 

put 
the 

name 



193 


74:2 


of 


184 


75:1 


my 


377 


75:1 


Lord 


70 


75:1 


the 


10 


74:2 


Earl 



7M 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




138 


75:1 


upon 


395 


75:1 


the 


201 


75:1 


title-leaf 


193 


74:3 


of 


195 


75:1 


this 


308 


75:1 


volume ? 



505—219=286—23 /' & //=264— 193=71— 15 b & /i=56. 

193— 56=137+1=138+1 //=138. 
505—219=286—22 h & //=264— 193=71— 15 b & //=56. 

447—56=391 + 1=393+3 /5=395. 
505—219=286—23 d & //=264— 50=214— 13 d & h exc 

=201. 
505—219=286—22 h & 72=264—193=71-15 d & A= 

56. 248—56=192+1=193. 
505—219=286—22 l> & /^=364. 447—264=183+1= 

184+11 /;=195. 
505—219=286—23 /> & //=264— 348=16+ 194=210— 

2 //=208. 

The reader will observe that we have here a sentence of twenty-three words, 
which not only cohere with each other grammatically and rhetorically, but accord 
with the history of events as they have come down to us. We have just seen that 
the Queen beat Hay ward. What was his offense? History tells us that it was 
because of the dedication of his book to the Earl of Essex. And here, without our 
looking for it, the root-number 505 — 219=286 — 22 /> & k=26i\ brings out the ques- 
tion of Cecil: said to him: Conic, speak out. Why didst thou put the name of my 
Lord the Earl upon the title-leaf of this volume ? And of these twenty-three words 
every one originates from 505 — 2ig, counting in the bracketed and hyphenated 
words in 219, to-wit, 22, which gives us the formula as above: 505 — 219 — iibsz h 
=264. And out of these twenty-three words fifteen are found in the same column of 
page 75, ivi thill a fe-di inches of space; and the other four are found in the next pre- 
ceding column. Surely never before did accident pack so much reason, history, 
grammar, rhetoric and sense into so small a compass. And what a marvelous 
piece of composition is this, where we find the names of Marlo-we, Archer, Hayward, 
Shakspcre, Cecil, Henslow, the old jade, the Contention of York and Lancaster, King 
John, the Fortune, the Curtain, act, scene, stage, and such sentences as the above, all 
grouped together on three pages. And so arranged that many of the words are used 
over and over again. 

Take the words which constitute the name of Cecil — I say nothing of other 
pages, but speak only of these three, or, strictly speaking, these two and a half 
pages, containing about 2,000 words. The word ///, the terminal syllable of Cecil, 
occurs in the plays, either alone or hyphenated with other words, about 250 times. 
It occurs in the entire Bible, including the Old and New Testament, but eleven 
times ! And yet, as the equivalent of ct'H, we would expect to find it used many 
times in writings having such relation to moral wrong-doing as the Scriptures. 
The word ///occurs in the second part of Henry IV. eighteen times standing alone; 
// does not occur once alone in the first part of Henry 11^. But it is cunningly con- 
cealed in " ///-sheathed knife," "///-weaved ambition" and " ///-spirited Worcester;" 
and also in hill, pronounced in those good old days, ' ' ' ///. " This word hill, unusual 
in dramatic poetry or elevated composition, occurs seven times in the first part of 
Henry IF. anA only once in the second part. Why these differences? Because, as 
I have shown, the first part was first published, to nm the gauntlet of suspicion, 
and Bacon took especial care to exclude all words that might look like Cipher 
work; and assuredly, if Cecil suspected a Cipher narrative, or had any intimation 
of such, he would be on the lookout for such words as might, compounded, consti- 
tute his own name. 



THE QUEEN BE A TS HA YWARD. 



715 



On these three pages the word /// occurs twice, both times in the first subdi- 
vision of 75:1. 

He told me that Rebellion had /// luck. 



Said he . . . 
Had met ill luck. 



Rebellion 



And just as we found the position of the words and the dimensions of the 
pages, columns, scenes and subdivisions of scenes adjusted to each other to pro- 
duce old jade, etc., so we find these words seas ill and says ///holding curious rela- 
tions to the text. For instance 



523—248=375—193=83-15 /; & //=67. 
533—198=335—193=133—15 d & //=117— 50 (76:1)= 
533—193=335—50=275—193=83—15 d & //=67. 
533—193=335-354=71—4 A (354)=67. 
533—193=335. 498—335=173+1=174+8^=183. 
533—193=335—50=375. 448—375=173+1=174+ 

8 ^=183. 
516—167=349—33 /' & /?=337— 146 (76:3)=183. 
533—198=335—348=77—34 d & /i (348)=53. 
533—167=356—33 i & h (167)=334— 193=141. 193— 

141=53+1=53. 
516—167=349—193=156—15 h & li=Ul. 193—141= 

53+1=53. 
516—50=466—50 (76:1)=416. 447—416=31 + 

31 /; & /^=53. 
516—167=349—33 & /i (167)=337. 447—337= 

120+1=131. 
505—167=338. 447—338=109+1=110+11 /;=131. 
513+167=346—248=98—24 /' & //=74. 193—74= 

119 + 1=130+1 //=131. 





Page and 




Vo 


Column. 




67 


75:3 


says 


67 


75:3 


says 


67 


75:2 


says 


67 


75:2 


says 


182 


76:1 


seas 


182 


76:1 


seas 


183 


76:1 


seas 


53 


• 75:1 


ill 



53 

53 

53 

121 
121 

121 



75:1 
75:1 
75:1 

75:1 

75:1 

75:1 



ill 

ill 

ill 

ill 
ill 

ill 



I here give seven seas or savs and seven ills; but this does not begin to exhaust 
the possibilities. The reader will observe that Cecil is especially referred to in 
that part of the narrative which grows out of 523 — 198^325, and 516 — 167=349. 

In answer to Cecil's question, Hayward is foolish enough to praise Essex as a 
great and good man and the first among princes, (505 — 219=286 — 22 6 & 11=264 — 
ig3^7i. 508 — 71=437+1^438, 75:2, /w/ft'j-). and then we have, preceding the 
sentence given in the first part of this chapter, the words following, describing the 
Queen's rage: 



505—219=286—22 d & 7^=264—4 //=360. 
533—319=304—33 d & 7^=383. 384—382=3+1=3+ 

10 /'=13. 
523—219=304—23 /' & 7^=383—193=89. 508—89= 

419+1=430+17^=431. 
505—319=386—193=93—15 d & 7^=78. 
,505—319=386—193=93. 447—93=354+1=355+ 

3/^=358. 
533—319=304—33 1> & 7^=383—193=89. 448—89= 

359 + 1=360. 



360 



13 



74:1 



On 



74:1 hearing 



431 


75:3 


this 


78 


/5:3 


unwelcome 


358 


75:2 


praise 


360 


76:1 


of 



7i6 



THE CIPHER NARRA T/VE. 



Word. 

505—219=286—23 1> & 7^=264— 193=71. 193—71= 

122+1=123. 128 

523—219=304—50 (76:1)=254. 254 
505—219=286+22 1> & //=264— 193=71. 193—71= 

122 + 1=123+1/^=124. 124 

505—219=286—21 <^=265— 193=72— 15 b & /z=57. 57 

523—219=304—22 i & //=282. 282 

523—219=304—193=111 + 193=304—4 d col. =300. 300 

505-219=286—22 d & 7^=264—193=71 . 71 

523—219=304—218 (74:2)=86— 9 /> & 7?=77. 77 

505— 21 9=286— 22 /> & 7^=264. 264 

505—198=307. 448—307=141 + 1=142. 142 

523—198=325—253=72—15=57. 57 

505—198=307—254=53—2 7/=51. 51 

505—219=286—22 /> & 7^=264—193=71—1 7/=70. 70 
523—219=304—22 /' & 7^=282—193=89. 193—89= 

104+1=105. 105 



Page and 
Column. 



i'.J-.'i 



75:1 
76:2 
75:2 
75:1 
75:2 
75:1 
75:1 
76:1 
76:2 
76:1 
76:1 



my 
noble 

Lord 

her 
Grace 

was 

not 

able 

to 

restrain 

her 
passion 

any 



75:1 longer. 



Then follows the description of the beating of Hay ward already given. 

We learn from Bacon's anecdote that the Queen did not believe that Hayward 
was the real author of the pamphlet history of the deposition of Richard II., but 
suspected that some greater person was behind him. And the Cipher tells us that 
she tried to frighten him into telling who this person was. She threatens him with 
the — 



-254=28. 193—28= 





167 


75:1 


loss 


447—282=165+1= 


166 


75:1 


of 


•254=28. 


28 


75:1 


his 


284—282=2+1—3. 


3 


74:1 


ears. 



523—219=304—22 /; & 7/=282- 

165 + 1=166+1 7/=167. 
523—219=304—22 /' & 7^=282. 
523—219=304—22 /> & 7/=282- 
523—219=304—22 /' & 7/=282. 



Observe the symmetry of this sentence. Every word grows out of the same 
root-numbers, (523 — 219^304 — 22 /> & 7?=282); /oss is the 28th word up from the 
bottom of the second subdivision of 75:1, and //is is the 28th word up from the bot- 
tom of the second subdivision of 75:1; while ^y'is the 282d word up the same 75:1 
and fars the 282d word up the corresponding column of the next preceding page, to- 
wit: 74:1. In every case the bracketed and hyphenated words are not counted in. 
While if we carry the same 282 through the second column of page 74 and up the 
preceding column it brings us to p/</, (the old jade); or, counting in the three 
bracketed words in the lower part of 74:1, to the word crafty. 

The Queen denounces Hayward. She speaks of — 



505—219=286—22 b & 7/= 

2 ^=257. 
505—219=286—22 /> & h- 
505—219=286—22 b & 7/= 



=264—198=66 + 1 93=259— 



=264—30=234 



And says: 

505—219=286—22 b & 7/=264— 197= 

65+193=258—5 b & 7^=253. 
505—219=286—22 b & /4=264— 50= 





257 


75:1 


Thy 


34. 


234 


75:1 


hateful 


14—4 7/=210. 


210 


75:1 


looks; 


67—2 7/ (197)= 










253 


75:1 


and 


14. (74:2) 


214 


75:1 


the 



THE QUEEN BE A TS HA YVVAKD. 



71/ 



505—219=286—22 /; & //=264— 197 (74:2)=67+193 

260—5 b & //=255. 
505—219=286—22 d & //==264— 198=66 +198=259— 

3 /'=256. 
505-^19=286-22 /> & 7^=264- 193=71. 193+71= 

264—2 //=262. 
505—219=286—22 /> & //=264— 197=07 + 193=260— 

2 //=258. 

505—219=286—22 /' & //=264— 198=66. 193—66= 
505—219=286—22 /; & //=264— 197=67+193=260. 
505—219=286—22 d & 7^=264—193=71. 193+71= 

264— 3/;=261. 
505—219=286—22 d & 7^=264—197=67+193=260— 

3 /;=257. 

505—219=286—22 d & 7/=264— 193=71 + 194=265— 

2 7^=263. 

505—219=286—22/' & 7/=264— 193=71 + 193=264. 
505—219=286=22 d & 7/=264— 193=71. 194—71= 
505—219=286—22 d & 7^=264-193=71 + 194=265— 

3 /'=262. 

505—219=286—22 /> & 7/=264— 50=214— 10 /^col.= 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




255 


75:1 


whiteness 


256 


75:1 


in 


262 


75:1 


thy 


258 


75:1 


cheek 


259 


75:1 


is 


260 


75:1 


apter 



261 
257 

263 

264 
265 

262 
214 



75:1 

75:1 

75:1 

75:1 
75:1 

75:1 
75:1 



then 

thy 

tongue 
to 
tell 

thy 
nature. 



Every one of these eighteen words comes out of the same root-number (505 — 
219=286 — 22 l> & 7^=264) which produced the sentence of twenty-three words 
recently given, and all these forty-one words cohere in meaning. And what is still 
more remarkable, every one of the eighteen words in the above sentence is found 
in the same column of the same page, and all of them in the compass of ;//«t' /if/cs,- 
and ihirti'i'ii out of the cighti'cn an: found in t7uo lines! If this be accident, it is 
certainly something astounding. Observe also that we have here four tliys. 
There is not a single thy on the whole o^ the preceding page, 74; nor on the whole 
of the succeeding page, 76. Why is this difference ? Because here the Queen is. 
talking fiercely to an inferior, Hayward, and is thouing him. There are three 
thys in these two lines, and every one of them is used by the root-numbers in the 
above sentence; and one is used twice. And it is only possible to thus use thirteen 
words out of two littes containing seventeen ivords, by the subtle adjustment of the 
bracketed and hyphenated words; and six of the above words are the 71st word 
from the end of the first subdivision of 75:1, or the beginning of the second subdi- 
vision of the same; while five are the 67th word and three the f)6th word from 
the same points of departure. 

I am aware that it may be objected that it is claimed that Hayward was not 
arrested until 1599, and that the first part of Henry JP\ (interlocking through the 
Cipher whh this second part) was published in 1598. But the date of Hayward's 
arrest is obscure and by no means certain; and if it were certain, it does not fol- 
low that because a quarto edition of the play of ist Henry IV. has been found, 
with the date 1598 on the title-page, it is therefore certain that it was published in 
that year. It would be but a small trick for the mind that invented such a com- 
plicated cipher to put an incorrect date on the title-leaf of a quarto to avoid suspi- 
cion, for who would look for a cryptogram, describing events that occurred in 1599, 
in a book which purported to have been published in 1598? 



CHAPTER IX. 

CECIL SA YS SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 

Your suspicion is not without wit or judgment. 

Oihelloy h\ 2. 

WE come now to an interesting part of the narrative — the 
declaration of Cecil's belief that neither Marlowe nor Shak- 
spere was the real author of the Plays which were put forth in 
their names. 

And it will be noticed by the reader how marvelously the whole 
narrative flows out of one root-number. That is to say, the third 
number, 516, is modified by having deducted from it 167, to-vvit: 
the number of words after the first word of the second subdivision 
of column 2 of page 74, down to and including the last word of the 
subdivision. And the reader cannot fail to notice what a large part 
of the Cipher narrative of Shakspere and Marlowe flows from this 
second subdivision. 

And the reader will also observe that in tliis second subdivision 
there are 21 words in brackets and one additional hyphenated 
word — or 22 in all; these added to the 167 make 189; and 189 
deducted from 516 leaves 327. Or, the same result is obtained by 
first deducting from 516 the 167, and then deducting from the 
remainder 22 for the bracketed and hyphenated words. I express 
the formula thus; 

5 16 — 167^349 — 22 /^& //=327. 

Fa'ckv word of all the sentences in the following chapter grows out 
of the niiinbcr jzy: 

Page and 

Word. Column. 

516—167=349— 22 1> & //=327. 498—327=171 + 1= 

172 + 10 /'&//=182. 182 76:1 Seas ^ 

516— 167=349— 22/' &//=327. 447—327=120+1= 121 75:1 ill \ 

516— 167=349— 22/^ &//=327— 30=297— 50(76:1)= 247 76:2 said 

7.8 



SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE FLA VS. 



719 



Observe, here, how precisely the same number brings out .f<v?jand ill: compare 
the numbers in groups; — 516 — 516; — 167 — 167; — 34Q — 349; — iib&.h — 22/^*1 //; — 
327 — 327: — and going up the first column of page 76 with 327, we find seas; while 
going- up the first column of page 75 with 327 brings us to ///. 



516—107=349—22 b & //=327— 284=43. 447—43 

=404 + 1=405+3 /;=408. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 254=73— 1 5 b .% //= 

58. 448—58=390+1=391. 
516—167=349—22/' & //=327— 50=277— 50 (74:2) 

=227—1 //=220. 
516—167=349—22 /.& //=327— 254=73— 50 (76:1) 

=23—1 //=22. 
516—167=349—22 b & /;=327— 30=297— 254=43 

—15 b & /!=2S. 
516—167=349—22 b & /^=337— 248=79. 193—79 

=114+1=115+ /;&/^=(121). 
516— 167=349— 22 Z* & //=327— 254=73— 15 b &/i = 

58. 498—58=440+1=441. 
516-167=349—22 /; & //=327— 50=227— 7 b & //= 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327. 
516—167=349—22 b & /^=327— 145 (76:2)=182. 

498—182=316+1=317. 
516—167=349—22 /' & 7^=327-193=134. 248— 

134=114+1=115. 
516—167=349—22/; & 7^=327— 254=73— 15 b&A 

=58—5 /;=53. 



Word. 


Pag'e and 
Column. 




408 


75:1 


that 


391 


76:1 


More \ 


226 


74:1 


low / 


22 


76:1 


or 


28 


75:2 


Shak'st 


(121) 


75:1 


spur 


441 


76.1 


never 


220 


76:2 


V7rit 


327 


76:1 


a 


317 


76:1 


word 


115 


74:2 


of 


58 


74:1 


them. 



I will ask the skeptical reader to examine the foregoing three remarkable com- 
binations of words : seas-i/l (Cecil), niore-loiv (Marlowe), and shale st-spur (Shak- 
spere). Remember they are all derived from the same root-mtmber, and the same modi- 
fication of the same root-number: 516 — 167=349 — 22b &h (i67)=327; — and that they 
are all found in four columns ! Are there four other columns, on three other con- 
secutive pages, in the world, where six such significant words can be discovered? 
And, if there are, is it possible to combine them as in the foregoing instances, not 
only by the same root-number, but by the same modification of the same root-num- 
ber? If you can indeed do this in a text where no cipher has been placed, then the 
age of miracles is not yet past. 

And here, confirmatory of this opinion, thus bluntly expressed by Cecil, as to 
the authorship of the Shakespeare and Marlowe Plays, we have — groiving out of 
precisely the same root-number and the same modification of the same root-mimber — 
still other significant words- 



516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 198=129. 447—129 

=318+1=319. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327—237 (73:2)=90. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327— 198 (74:2)=129— 

11 /' & //=118. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=827— 198 (74:2)=129— 

90 (73:1)=39. 



319 


75:1 


It 


90 


74:1 


is 


118 


74:1 


plain 


39 


73:2 


he 



720 



rilE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Weird. 


Pagre and 
Column. 




l.")l 


74:1 


is 


49 
234 


74:1 
73:2 


stufffng 
our 


51 


74:1 


ears 


86 


74:1 


with 


=55 


74:1 


false 


56 


74.1 


reports 


138 


73.1 


and 


253 


74:1 


lies 


229 


74:1 


this 


139 


73:1 


many 


119 


74:1 


a 


84 


U.l 


year. 



516—167=349—23 b & /;=327— 193=134. 284—134 

=150+1=151. 
516—167=349—22 /; & //=327— 30=297— 248=49. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 90 (73:1)=237— 3 b= 
516—167=349—22 b & /'=327— 248=79— 22 b (248; 

=57—6 b & /i=51. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 219=108— 22 /'=86. 
516—167=349—22 b& //=327— 248=79— 24 b & h (248> 
516—167=349—22 /; & 7^=327—30=297-219 (74:2)= 

78—22 /' (219)=56. 
516—167=349—22 b & /^=327— 30=297— 248=49+ 

j)0(73:l)=139— 1 //=138. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 30=297— 29 (74:2)= 

268—15 b & //=253. 
516—167—349—22 b & //=327— 30=297— 219 (74:2)= 

78—22 b (219)=56. 284—56=228+1=229. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327-30=297-248=49. 

90 (73:1)+49=139. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327— 198 (74:2)=129— 

10 /'=119. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327—90 (73:1)=237— 29 

(73:2)=208. 284—208=76+1=77+7 7^=84. 

The reader will observe how marvelously the fragments of the scene on 74:2 
are adjusted to 516 — 167=349 — 22 /' & h (i67)=327, to produce on 74:1 nearly all 
the above coherent words. And every word here given arises out of the same 
root-number and the aitiie iiiodificalion of ilw same rool-nuinbi'r, to-wit: 516 — 167 
=^349 — 22 b & h (167)^327. And of the seventeen words in the above sentence, 
thirteen are found on J 4:1 — a short column of J02 ivoi-ds ! 

Let me explain this a little more fully. As we have found the root mmber, 
516 — 167^349 — 22 b & 7=327, it is natural that we should carry it to the beg'^ning 
of column 2 of page 74, which is the beginning of the second scene; and tha as 
is the rule with the Cipher, we should deduct the number of words in that column, 
248, and thus obtain a new subordinate root-number to carry elsewhere. We have 
therefore 327 — 248=79. If we turn to the preceding column, -74:1, we find that 
the 79th word \s prepared, which we will see used directly in connection with the 
preparation of the Plays ! And if we carry 79 up the column, it brings us to nnder, 
the 206th word: — prepared under the name, etc. But if we modify 79 by deducting 
the usual modifier, 30, we have 49, which, down the column, gives us stuffing, 
( "stuffing our ears," etc.), and up the column it gives us betiveen, which we will 
see directly to be used in the significant group of words: Contention betzveen York 
and Lancaster, the name of one of Bacon's early plays. If we modify 79 by 
deducting the other usual modifier, 50, we have left 29, the very significant word 
acts. And, as we obtained 79 by deducting 248 from 327, — if we go back and 
count in the bracket words in the 248, we reduce the 79 to 57 (79 — 22 b (74:2)^57); 
and that gives us, counting in the bracketed and hyphenated words, the word 
ears — "stuffing our ears" But if we also deduct the hyphenated words in 
248, as well as the bracketed words, we have 55 (79 — 24 b &, h (74:2)=55), which 
gives us false. And then observe how ingeniously the mechanism of 74:2 is 
adapted to the work required of it ! If, instead of counting from the bottom of the 



SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE FLA YS. 



721 



column (74:2), we count from the beginning of the last subdivision of the column 
(219), this brings us the words ivith — reports — ////j (" stuffing our ears with false 
reports"); while if we go down from the same point on 74:2, counting in the 29 
words, and back as before, we land first upon the word other, which we will see 
used directly, in connection with "other plays," and then, counting in the brack- 
eted and hyphenated words, upon the word lies, which fits in very naturally with 
" false reports" and both with Cecil's declaration that Marlowe and Shakspere did 
not write the plays attributed to them. And then, if we take the same root- 
number, 327, and begin to count from the end of the first subdivision downward, 
we have 198 words, which deducted from 327 leaves 129, and this carried down 
74:1, counting in the bracketed and hyphenated words, brings us to the iiSth word, 
plain — "it is plain" — in the foregoing sentence, and this 129, less 50, brings us 
again to the 79th word, the significant word prepared; and up the column again 
it brings us again to the word under, which goes with it. Here we see increasing 
proofs of the niarvelously ingenious nature of the Cipher, and of the superhuman 
genius required to fold an external narrative around this mathematical frame-work 
or skeleton so cunningly that it would escape suspicion for two hundred and fifty 
years. 

And just as the root-number, 327, was carried to the beginning of scene 2d of 
2d Henry IT., so the remainders-over, the root-numbers so obtained, are carried to 
the beginning of the next preceding scene, The Induction; and thence, in the prog- 
ress of the Cipher, they are carried to the beginning of the next scene preceding 
this, to-wit: the last scene of the first part of Henry IV., and, returning thence, 
just as we saw they did in the chapter relative to Bacon receiving the news, they 
determine the posi^f'on of the Cipher words in column i of page 74. 

Thus the re-?der will perceive the movements of the root-numbers through the 
text are not vnveuted by me to meet the exigencies of an accidental collocation of 
words in one particular chapter, but they continue unbroken all through the Cipher 
narrative. 

But if we take the same root-numbers obtained by modifying 327 (516 — 167= 
349 — 22 l> & h^2>-l), by deducting therefrom the modifying numbers in column 2 of 
page 74, to-wit: 219, 29, 198, 50, or 218, 30, 197, 49, (according as we count from 
the beginnings or ends of the subdivisions), and we reach some additional sen- 
tences, all cohering with those already given. 

For instance, Cecil tells the Queen, speaking of Shakspere: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

516—107=349—22 b &/^=327— 197=130. 193—130 

=63+1=64. 64* 75:1 He 

516—167=349—22 l> & /;=327— 193=134. 284—134 

=150-1-1=151. 
516—167=349—22 /' & //=327— 198=129— 24 /' & //= 
516—167=349—22 i> & /^=327— 219=108— 22 i & h= 

86—1 7^=85. 
516—167=349—22 i & //=327— 50 (74:2)=277. 
516— 167=349— 22 (5 & 7^=327-30=297— 284=13— 

7 // (284)=6+ 91=97. 
516—167=349—22 /; & 7/=327— 219=108. 447—108 

=339+1=340. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7^=327—50=277—248=29. 

169—29=140+1=141. 



151 


74:1 


is 


105 


74:1 


a 


85 


75:1 


poor, 


277 


75:1 


dull, 


97 


73:1 


ill-spirited, 


340 


75:1 


greedy 


141 


73:1 


creature, 



722 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Word. 
182 

186 

1(52 

277 



Page and 
Column. 



75:1 



74:1 



74:1 
75:2 



and 

but 

a 
veil 



74:1 for 

74:1 some 

75:2 one 



73:1 
74:1 
75:1 
74:1 
75:1 

74:1 

74:1 

74:1 



else, 

who 

had 

blo\wn 

up 

the 

flame 

of 



olG— 107=349— 22 /- & //=327— 50=277. 447—277= 

170 + 1=171 + 11 /'=182. 
516—167=349—22 /' & 7^=327— 198=129— 24 /> & //= 

105. 284— 105=179 + 1=180 + 6 //=186. 
516— 167=349— 22/^ & //=327— 198=129. 284—129 

=155 + 1=156+6 //=162. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 50=277. 
516—167=349—22 /- & //=327— 30=297— 284=13. 

17//&// exc— 13=4. 
516—167=349—22/^ & //=327— 219=108— 21 /> (218)= 
516—167=349—22 /; & //=327— 30=297— 284=1 3— 

7//(284)=6. 508—6=502+1=503. 
516 -167=349—22 /u, 7^=327-284=43-10 /=33. 

90+33=143—1 7^=142. 
516—167=349—23 d ft 7^=327-248=79- 11 />& h= 
516—167=349—22 h ft 7/=327— 198=129— 10 /;=119. 
516— 167=349— 22^ ft 7^=327—198=129—22 7;=]07. 
516— 167=349— 22 />& 7/=327— 219=108— 21 /; (219) = 
516—167=349—22 h & 7/=327— 219=108. 284—108 

=176+1=177-+ 6 7'=183 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327—219=108. 284—108 

=176+1=177. 
516-167=349—22/; & 7/=327— 198=129— 22 /'=107, 

284—107=177+1=178. 
516—167=349—22 h & 7/=327— 198=129— 24 / & 7/ 

(74:2)=105. 284—105=179+1=180. 
516—167=349—22 1> & 7^=327—248=79—24 /> & A (248) 

=55+51 (74:2)=106. 
516-167=349—22 // & 7/^.327—218-109. 447—109 

=338+1=339+8 /=347. 
516—167=349—22 /> & 7/=327— 219=108— 22 b & /i = 

86. 284—86=198+1=199. 
51 6—167=349—22 /> & h = 327—219=1 08—10 /;=98. 
516—167=349—22 biz 7'=327— 248=79. 
516—167=349—22 /' & 7/=327— 197=130— 50=80. 

447—80=367+1=368+3 /;=371. 
516-1 67=349—22 /' & 7^=327- 30=297— 284=13+ 

90 (73:1)=103. 
r>l 6 - 1 67=349—23 /' & 7/=327— 90=237— 1 /'=227. 
51 6— 167=349— 22 b & 7/=327— 30=297— 248=49— 

24 b ft 7/=25. 284—25=259 + 1=2G0 + 3 7/=263. 
516—167=349— 22/' & 7^=327—79 (73:1)=248— 10/;= 
516— .167=349— 22 /; & 7/=327— 219=108— 1 1 / & 7/= 



It would seem as if Cecil had information that the stage-manager met every 
night, perhaps in some dark alley of unlighted London, some party, and gave him 
a share of the proceeds of the Plays. The performances at that time were during 
the day. 

The reader will again observe that every word of the foregoing and following 



4 

87 

503 

142 

68 

119 

107 

87 

183 

177 
178 
180 
106 
347 

199 

98 
79 

371 



74:1 rebellion 



74:2 

75:1 

74:1 
74:1 
75:1 

75.1 



almost 

in 

to 

■war 

against 

your 



103 


73:1 


Grace 


227 


74:1 


as 


263 


74:1 


a 


238 


71:1 


royal 


97 


74:1 


tyrant. 



sentences is the j2jih fro7n certain ivell-defined points of depaiiiire. 



If he thinks he 



SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



'-^3 



can construct similar sentences, per hazard, with any number not a Cipher- 
number, let him try the experiment. 

And observe how cunningly the text is adjusted so as to bring out the words, — 
"■ bhnvn the fiaine of rcb,:llion into "iCHir," — by the root-number, 516 — 167=349 — 22 
b & /t=3-7\ and also by the root-number, 523—267=356, as shown in Chapter VII., 
"The Purposes of the Plays." And how is this accomplished? Because the dif- 
ference between 327 and 356 is 29; and the difference between 248, the total 
number of words on column 2 of page 74, and 219, the total number of words from 
the top of the same column to the beginning of the last subdivision of that column, 
is also 29; and hence the words fit to both counts. It is absurd to suppose that all 
this dedicate adjustment of the Cipher root-numbers to the frame-work of 74:2, 
" The Heart of the Mystery," came about by chance. 

But Cecil continues: 



-.■")(':= 



516—1(7=349—2;.' b & //=32T— ^0 (74:2)= 
516— l().=.J4y— 22 /' &. //=;J27— 218 (74:2 

59. 193—59=134-4-1=135. 
516-167=349—22 /> & /'=327— 248=79 ^193=272— 

2 //=270. 
516-167=349—22 /, & /'=327— 218 (74:2)=109— 50= 

59. 447—59=388+1=389. 
516—167=349—22 /- & /i=327— 248=79— 22 /; (74:2)= 

57—7 /;=50. 
516—167=349—22 d & /^=327— 284=43 . 248— 43~ 

205+1=206. 
516—167=340-22 b & //=327— 284=43— 7 /i (284)= 

36+90=126—1 //=125. 
516—167=349—22 /> & /,=327— 284=43. 248—43= 

205+1=206+1 /'=207. 
516—167=349—22 /> & //=327— 248=79— 22 /> (248)— 
516—167=349—22 d & /^=327— 218 (74:2)=109— 50 

=59—1 //=58. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 248=79— 27 (73:1)= 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327—50=277. 447—277 

=170+1=171. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 248=79— 7 /^=70. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 29(73:2)=278— 14 

/' & // exc.=264. 
516—167=349—22 d & /;=327— 219=108— 22 /'=86. 

284—86=198+1=199. 
516-167=349—22 /. & //=327— 50=277— 237(73:2) 

=40. 248—40=208 + 1=209. 
516-167=349—22 l> & 7^=327-30=297-284=13. 

248-13=235+1=236. 
516—167=349—22 l> & 7/=327— 198 (74:2)=129. 

193—129=64+1=65+1 //=66. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7/=327— 218 (74 :2)=109— 50= 
516—167=349—22/^ & 7^=327—30=297—6 7/=291. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7/=327— 283=44. 
516—167=849—22 b & 7^=327—30=297. 
516—167=349—22 l> & 7/=327— 218 (74:2W109— 50= 



Word. 
13 



270 



Page and 
Column. 

74:2 



•5:1 



have 



3^9 


75:1 


suspicion 


50 


75:1 


that 


206 


74:2 


my 


125 


73:1 


kinsman's 


207 


74:2 


servant, 


57 


75:1 


young 


58 


75:1 


Harry 


52 


78.2 


Percy, 


171 


75:1 


was 


70 


75:1 


the 


264 


74:1 


man 


199 


74:1 


to 


209 


74:2 


whom 


236 


74:2 


he 


66 


75:1 


gave 


59 


74:2 


every 


291 


75:1 


night 


44 


74:2 


the 


297 


75:1 


half 


59 


74:1 


of 



724 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



516—167=349—22 b & //=327- 
516—167=349—22 /; & ,'/=327- 
-167=349—22 i> & /^=827- 



516 

516—167=349—22 l> & /^=327— 219 

226+1=227+6 ^=233. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 198=129 
516—167=349—22 /; & /;= 



Word. 

-198=129—90=39. 39 

198=129—79=50+29=79 

58. 284—58= 



327—248=79- 

, + 1 /,=138. 



-79=50, 

-22 /;=57. 



-284=43. 

-248=79—22 /;= 



193—57=136+1=13^ 
516—167=349—22 b & /^=327- 
516—167=349—22 b & /i=^21!—mb=>v—'SJ b=r,,. 

193—57=136+1=137. 
516—167=349—22 /- & 7^=327-29 (73:2:=298— 284 

=14—10 /;=4. 



233 
50 

138 
43 

137 



Page and 
Column. 

75:1 

73:2 
73:2 



74:1 



?5:1 
74:2 



75:1 



74:2 



what 

he 

took 

through 
the 

day 
at 

the 

gate. 



The Curtain play-house was surrounded by a muddy ditch to keep off the rab- 
ble, and doubtless the money paid to see the performances was collected at a gate 
at the drawbridge. 

And then we have this striking statement: 



516—167=349—22 b & /'=327— 

90 (73:1)=139. 
516—167=349—22 /; & //=327— 
516—167=349—22 d & 7^=327- 

219=28—22 /;=6. 447—6= 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327- 

(284)=25. 248—25=223+ 
516—167=349—22 d & /^=327- 
516—167=349—22 l> & /z=327— 
516—167=349-22 i> & 7^=327- 

284—40=244+1=245. 
516—167=349—22 /> & 7/=337- 

28 (7S:2)=57. 
516—167=349—22 i & 7^=327- 

57—7 7,=50. 
516—167=349—22 i & 7/=327- 

205+1=206. 
516—167=349—22 l> & 7/=327- 

77. 237—77=160+1=161 
516—167=349—22 /> & 7/=327- 



30=297—248=49+ 

50=277. 

-30=297—50=247— 
=441 + 1=442. 

-284=43—18 /' & h 

1=224. 

-254=73—50(74:2)= 

■29(73:2)=278. 

-50=277—237=40. 

-248=79—50=29+ 

-248=79—22 b (248)= 

-284=43. 248—43= 

-248=79—2 h (248)= 
-)-3 /;=164. 
-284=43—18 b & h 



-248=79. 
-254=73—15 b & h- 

-2.54=73. 

-30=297—248=49- 



(284)=25+50 (74:2)=75. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327- 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327- 

58—50 (76:1)=8. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327- 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327- 

23 ^=27—2 7^=27. 
516—167=349—22 b & //=327— 254 (75:1)=73. 
516—167=349—22^ & 7^=327—30=297—248=49. 

284—49=235+1=236. 
516—167=349—22 b & 7/=327— 193=134— 15 /; & /5= 

119—50=69. 457 (76:2)+69=536— 3<^=523. 



139 

277 

442 

224 
23 

278 

245 

57 

50 

206 

164 

75 
79 



73:1 Many 

74:1 rumors 



75:1 

74:2 
74:1 
/4:1 

74:1 



5:1 



are 

on 

the 
tongues 

of 



that 



74:3 my 

73:2 cousin 



7J.-0. 



74:i 



hath 



74:1 prepared 



76:2 
74:1 



not 
only 



[27] 
73 

236 

523 



74:1 the 

74:2 Contention 

74:1 between 



76:1 



York 



SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLAYS. 



725 



516—167=349—22/. & /^=337— 254=78— l.j /, & k= 

58. 508— 58=450+ l=-r 1 . 
516—167=349—22 /. & //=827— 145 {76:2)=182. 

508—182=326+ 1=327. 
516—167=349—22 l> & //=327— 248=79— 7 /'=72. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 193=134. 284—134 

=150 + 1=151 + 6 //=157. 
516—167=349—22 I: & /,=327— 193=134— 49 (76:1) 

=85. 603—85=518+1=519. 
516—167=349—22 /; & 7^=327— 30=297— 248=49— 



258+3 //=261. 

448—134 



22/^=27. 284—27=257+1= 
516—167=349—22 l> C: Z=827— 193=134. 

=314+1=315 + 1 //=316. 
516—167=349—23 /> & //=327— 193=134. 
516—167=349—22 l> & //=327— 248=79— 10 /;=69. 
516—167=349—22/' & /^=327— 29 (73:2)=278— 10 /;= 
516—167=349—22 / & //=327— 283 (74:1 up)=44— 

7 /, (og3)=37_ 

516—167=349—22 / & /,=327— 254=73. 508—73= 

435+1=430+1 7^=437. 
516—167=349—22 /- a /.=327— 27 (73:1 )=300— 284= 
516— 107=349— 22/. .r. 7=327—284=43. 43+193= 
516—167=349—22/' & 7/=327— 284=43— 10 7=33. 
516—107=349—22 7 .li 7=327—284=43. 
516—167=349—22 7 & //=327— 237 (73:2)=90. 284 

—90=194+1=195. 
516—167=349 - 22 7 & 7=327—248=79. 284—79= 

205+1=206. 
516—167=349—22 7 & 7=327—219 (74:2)=108. 

193—108=85+1=86+3 7=89. 
516—167=349—22 7 & /;=327— 284=43— 18 7 & 7 

(284)=25. 219—25=194+1=195. 
516—167=349—22 7 & 7=327—50=277—218=59. 
516—167=349-22 7 & 7=327—28 (73:2)=299— 284 

=15. 248—15=233+1=234. 
516—167=349—22 7 & 7=327—50=277—218=59. 

284—59=225+1=226. 
516—167=349-22 7 & 7=327—237 (73:2)=90, 169 

—90=79 + 1=80. 
516—167=349—22 7 & 7=327—284=43—15 7 & h 

(284)=25 + 218=243— 2 7 & 7=241. 
516—167=349—22 7 & 7=327—30=297—169 (73:1) 

=128. 237—128=109+1=110+3 7=113. 
516—167=349—22 b & /z=327— 237 (73:2)=90. 284 

—90=194+1=195+6 7=201 . 
516—167=349—22 7 & 7=327—50=277—219=58. 

284—58=226+1=227. 
516—167=349—22 7 & 7=327—237 (73:1)=90- 

11 /, & /,=79. 



Word. 

451 

327 

72 

157 
519 
261 

316 

134 
69 

^ 268 



Page and 
Column. 



75:2 



76:1 
74:1 
74:1 
74:1 

74:2 



and 



75:2 Lancaster 
75:1 and 

74:1 King 

76:2 John 

74:1 and 



this 

play, 

but 

other 

plays 



437 


75:2 


which 


16 


74:2 


are 


236 


75:1 


put 


33 


74:2 


forth 


43 


74:2 


at 


195 


74:1 


first 


206 


74:1 


under 


89 


75:1 


the 


195 


74:2 


name 


59 


74:1 


of 


234 


74:2 


More 


226 


74:1 


low 


80 


73:1 


and 


241 


74:2 


now 


113 


73:2 


go 


201 


74:1 


abroad 


227 


74:1 


as 



79 



74:1 prepared 



726 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Page and 
Word. Column. 



516_167=349— 22 h & /;=327— 30=297— 248=49. 

447—49=398+1=399 + 3 /'=402. 402 75:1 by 

516—167=349—22/' & /,=327— 30=297— 254=43— 

15 /' & // (254)=28. 28 75:2 Shak'st 

516—167=349-22/' & /'=327— 21!) u4:2)=108— 



/ 



22/'&/^=86. 193— 86=107^1=108+6 />& /-= 114 75:1 spurre. .^ 

And here let us pause, and — if any doubt still lingers in the mind of the reader 
as to existence of a Cipher narrative infolded in the words of this text — let us con- 
sider the words shak'st and spiirre, and observe how precisely they are adjusted to 
the pages, scenes, and fragments of scenes; just as we found the words old 
jadc and sens-ill to match by various ])rocesses of counting with the root- 
numbers. 

We have shak'st but once in many pages. It would not do to use it too 
often — it would arouse suspicion; hence, we will soon ^x\AJack substituted for it, 
which, no doubt, was pronounced, in that day, something like shock or shack. I 
have heard old-fashioned people give it the shock sound, even in this country, 
where our sounds of (/ are commonly narrower and more nasal than the English. 
The word shale st is found on the fourth line of column 2 of page 75 of the Folio: 

Thou shak'st thy head and hold'st it Feare or Sinne, etc. 

While the s/y/tnvs are many times repeated in the first column of page 75, thus: 

He told me that Rebellion had ill luck 

And that yong Harry Percies .Sfiitrrc was cold. 

And eight lines below we have it again: 

Said he yong Harry Percyes Spurrc was cold? 
(Of WoX.- Spiirre, cold.- Spiirre ?) that Rebellion 
Had met ill lucke? 

Here in twelve lines the word spiirre occurs four times, and it does not occur 
again until near the end of the play. 

Now let us see how these words match with the Cipher numbers. If we take 
505 and deduct the modifier 30, we have 475 left; if we count forward from the top 
of column 2 of page 75, the 475th word is shak'st ; that is, leaving out the bracketed 
and hyphenated words. But if we again take 505 and count from the same point, 
plus b& /^ the 505th word is again shak'st. Why? Because there are just 30 brack 
eted and hyphenated words in column i of page 75, and these precisely balance the 
30 words of the modifier in 74:2. But if we take 505 again, and deduct 29, the num- 
ber of words in the last section of 74:2, we have left 476; and if we start to count 
from the end of scene 2 on 76:1, and count up and back and down, the 476th word 
is the same word shak'st; and if we take the root-number 506 and deduct 30 and 
count in the same way again, the count ends on the same word, shak'st. ■ 

And here, to save space, I condense some of the other identities. The reader 
will observe the recurrence of the very root-numbers we have been using: 

505—219=286—50=236—198=43—15 b & h (193)= 

505—284=221—193=28. 

505— 219=286— 193=93— 15^ & // (193)=78— 50 (76:1)= 

505— 30=475— 254 (75:1)=221— 193=28. 



28 


75:2 


shak'.st 


28 


75:2 


shak'st 


:28 


75:2 


shak'st 


28 


75:2 


shak'st 



SHAKSPERE DID NOT WRITE THE PLA VS. 



727 



75 -.3 


shak'st 


75:2 


shak'st 


75:2 


shak'st 


75.2 


shak'st 


75:2 


shak'st 


75:2 


shak'st 



Page and 
Word. Column. 

505— 193=312— 15/' &/^ (193)=297— 254=43— 15 ^ & h 

(193)=28. 28 

505—30=475—193=282—254=28. 28 

516—167=349—22 b & /^=327— 30=297— 254=43— 15 

/' & /i (254)=28. 28 

516—167=349—22 /- & /'=327— 50=277— 140 (76:2)= 

131—3=128—50=78—50=28. 28 

505—50=455—219 (74:2)=236— 198=43— 15 d & A 

(193)=28. 28 

505— 29=476— 218=258— 22 /> & h (218)=236— 193= 

43—15 h & h (193)=28. 28 

And there are still others ! 

Can any man pretend this came about by accident ? No: for be it observed that 
every nzimder which produces the word shak'st in the above examples, counting from 
the beginning or end of pages or fragments of pages, is c Cipher iimnber. And 
this concordance exists not once only, h\x\ fourteen times ! 

And as the internal narrative must bring in some reference to Shakspere every 
one of these fourteen times, by these fourteen different counts, the reader can 
begin to realize the magnitude of the story that is hidden under the face of this 
harmless-looking text. And then, be it also observed, eleven of these fourteen 
references grow out of that part of the story which comes from the root-number 
505; the word shak'st does not match once, nor can it be twisted into matching with 
523 or 513. Why? Because Bacon only occasionally refers to Shakspere; his 
story drifts into other and larger matters than his relations to the man of Stratford. 
The only time when 523 touches upon Shakspere is when it alternates with 505, thus:- 

505—167=338—22 /> & // (167)=316-30=286— 50 (74:2) 

=236—193=43—15 /' & h (193)=28. 
523—167=356—22 b & h (167)=334. 447—334=113 

+ 1=114. 

But let us turn to the word spitrre. We have: 
505—167=338—254=84—15 b & //=69— 9 b & /^=60. 
510-167=349—22 /; & //=327— 50=277— 193=8^^ 

15 ^ & /;=69— 9 b & //=60. 
.50.5—198 (74:2)=307— 218 (74:2)=89— 22 b & h (218)= 

67—7 /)=60. 
505—197 (74 :2)=308— 248=60. 
505—167 (74:2^,=338— 1 // ( 1 67)=337— 248=89— 22 b 

(248)=67— 7 /;=60. 
505—198 (74:2 =307— 193=1 14. 
523—167=356—22 b & //=o31. 447—334=113+1= 
523— 167=3.". 6— 22 b f. /•=334— 248=86. 193—86= 

107+1=108+6 /' & //=] 14. 
505—193=312—198 (74:2)=114. 
505—167=338—1 h (167)=337— 254=83. 193—83= 

110 + 1=111 + 3 //=114. 
516—167=349. 447—349=98+1=99—6 //=105. 
516—219=297—193=104—15 b & //=89. 193—89 

=104+5— 2/;& //=107. • (107) 75:1 spurre 



28 


75:2 


shak'st 


114 


75:1 


spurre 


60 


75:1 


spurre 


60 


75:1 


spurre 


60 


75:1 


spurre 


60 


75:1 


spurre 


60 


75:1 


spurre 


114 


75:1 


spurre 


114 


75:1 


spurre 


114 


75:1 


spurre 


114 


75:1 


spurre 


114 


75:1 


spurre 


(105) 


75:1 


spurre 



728 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

516—167 349—23 b & /^=327— 237=90— 3 b (237) 

=87 193—87=106+1=107. (107) 75:1 spurre 

.^16 -167=349—22 b & /^=327— 193=134— 15 b & h== (119) 75:1 spurre 

Here are fourteen spurres to match the fourteen shak'sts. 

I have not the space to summarize the number of instances wherein more and 
loiu are similarly made to harmonize with the root-numbers and the scenes and 
fragments of scenes. I have already given two such instances. 

Then let the reader observe that extraordinary collocation of words: The Con- 
tention between York and Lancaster, King JoJin, and other plays; all growing out of 
the same Cipher number, 327. If there is no Cipher in the text, surely these pages, 
74, 75 arid 76, are tlie most marvelous ever seen in the world; for they contain not 
only the names of the old jade, Cecil, Alarloive, Shakspere many times repeated, but 
Archer, the Contention between York and Lancaster, King John, and all the many 
pregnant and significant words which go to bind th;se in coherent sentences — not 
a syllable lacking. While it may stagger the credulity of men to believe that any 
person could or would impose upon himself the task of constructing such an 
unparalleled piece of work, it is still more incomprehensible that such a net-work 
of coincidences could exist by accident. 

But it may be said these curious words would naturally occur in the text of any 
writings. Let us see: There is the Bible; equally voluminous with the Plays, 
translated in the same era, and dealing, like the Plays, with biography, history and 
poetry. The word shake occurs in the Plays 112 times; in th2 Bible it occurs but 
35 times. There is no reason, apart from the Cipher, why it should occur more 
than three times as often in the Plays as in the Bible. The word//;?)' occurs in the 
Plays more than 300 times; in the Bible it occurs 14 times ! And remember that 
the word />/iiv in the Plays very seldom refers to a dramatic performance. Played 
is found in the Plays 52 times; in the Bible 7 times. Player occurs in the Plays 29 
times; in the Bible 3 times. Jade is found 24 times in the Plays and not once in the 
Bible. Stage occurs 22 times in the Plays and not once in the Bible. Scene occurs 
40 times in the Plays; not once in the Bible. 

But it may be said that dramatical compositions would naturally refer more to 
play and plays and scene, etc., than a religious work. But in the Plays themselves 
there are the widest differences in this respect. In King John, for instance, the 
word please (pronounced plays) occurs but once; in Hemy VIII. it is found 28 
times ! Play occurs but twice in the Comedy of Errors, but in ist IIen7y IV. we 
find it 12 times; in Henry VIII. 14 times, and in Hamlet 35 times ! Shake occurs 
but once each in Much Ado, ist Henry VI., in The Merchatit of Venice, Measure 
for Measure, the Ale rry IVives, and the Two Gejttlemen of Verona; whWc \n Julius 
Ccvsar we find it seven times, in Macbeth 8 times, in Lear 8 times, and in Othello 
7 times. 

These differences are caused by the fact that in some of the Plays the Cipher 
narrative dwells more upon Shakspere than in others. 'QMX.shake'x^ found in every 
one of the Plays, and it is therefore probable that the Stratford man entered very 
largely into Bacon's secret life and thought, and consequently into the story he 
tells. It will be a marvelous story when it is all told, and we find out what the 
wrong was that Caliban tried to work upon Miranda. 

But we go still farther with Cecil's reasons for believing that Shakspere did not 
write the Plays, and we carry the same root-number with us into another chapter. 



CHAPTER X. 



SHAKSPERE INCAPABLE OF WRITING THE PL A YS. 

A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow. 

Measure /or Measure, I'ii, 2. 

EVERY Cipher word in tJiis chapter also is fhe J2yfh 7Vord fro)n the 
same points of departure which have given us ail the Cipher story 
■which has preceded it. 

We have this further statement from Cecil to the Queen: 

516 

167 (74:2) 

349 



516—167=349—22 1> & A= 

603—227=376+1= 
516—167=349—22 /> & h= 
516—167=349—22 b & //= 

50=54—50 (76:1)= 
516—167=349—22/; & //= 
516—167=349—22 /' & //= 

15 ^ & /,=89. 448- 
516—167=349—22 /; & //= 
516—167=349—22 b & li= 
516—167=349—22/; & //= 

9 // & /;=(172). 
516—167=349—22 b & h= 

248—248=0+1=1 
516— 167=349— 22/; & li- 
516—167=349—22 b & li- 

448—104=344+1= 
516—167=349—22 b & ti- 

10/;=122. 
516— 167=349— 22/; & ti 

=129— 2 //=1 27. 
516—167=349—22 /; & h- 

15/.&//=69— 10/;= 
516—167=349—22 /; & Ji- 

15/;&//=89. 508- 
516—167=349—22 /; & //= 

7 + 1=8 + 18 /;&//=! 



349 327 




327 




22 b & // 50 




30 




327 277 




297 

Page and 






Word. 


Column. 




-327 50=277 50—227. 








=377. 


377 


76:2 


He 


-327 30—297 193—104. 


104 


74:1 


is 


-327-30—297-193-104— 








4. 508 4=504+1—505+1 //: 


=506 


75:2 


the 


-327—30—297—193— 


104 


75:2 


son 


-327—30—297—193—104— 








-89—359+1—360. 


360 


76:1 


of 


-327—50—277—50 (76:1)— 


227 


76:2 


a 


-327 49(76:2) 85. 


85 


75:1 


poor 


=327—146 (76:2)=181— 










(172) 


75:2 


peasant 


-327 30—297 49(76:1)— 










1 


74:2 


who 


=327—50=277—146=131 . 


131 


76:1 


yet 


-327 30—297 193—104. 








=345. 


345 


76:1 


followed 


=327—50=277—145=132 










122 


74:1 


the 


-327—193—134—5 h (193) 










127 


76:1 


trade 


=327—50=277—193=84— 








=59. 


59 


74:1 


of 


=327—30=297—193=104— 








89—419 + 1—420. 


420 


75:2 


glove 


=327—50=277. 284—277= 








<26). 


(26) 


74:1 


making 


729 









73° 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



516—167=349—22 b & //=827— 30=297— 193=104 

_3/;=101. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 30=297— 248=49— 

22/;=(27). 
516— 167=349— 22/' & //=327— 30=297— 49 (70:1)= 

248—4/^=244. 
516— 167=349— 22 /i& //=327— 30=297— 49 (74:2)= 
516—167=349—22/' & //=327— 30=297— 193=1 04— 

50=54. 603—54=549+1=550. 
516—167=349—22 b & 72=327-50=277. 447—277= 

170 + 1=171. 
516—167=349—22 /> & //=327— 30=297— 146 (76:2) 

=151—3 /'=148— 3 //=145. 
516—167=349—22 /> & /2=327— 30=297— 193=104— 

10 /; (193)=94. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 254=73— 15 / & //= 

58. 248—58=190+1=191. 
516—167=349-22 /' & //=327— 30=297— 30=267. 

448— 267=181 + 1=182+10 /& //=192. 
516—167=349—22-^ & //=327— 30=297— 50=247. 
516—167=349—22 l> & /2=327— 50=277— 248=29— 

2 /i (248)=27. 
516—167=349—22 /; & /^=327— 30=297— 50=247— 

12 d & 7^=235. 
516—167=349—22 /> & 7^=327-50=277-145=132. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7/=327— 30=297. 447—297 

=1.50+1=151+5 72=156. 
516— 167=349— 22 (^& 72=327—30=297—248=49- 

24 d& /i (248)=25. 
516—167=349—22 d & 72=327—50=277. 447—277- 

170 + 1=171 + 11 <^=182. 
516—167=349—22 d & 72=327—254=73—51 (448)= 

22. 603—22=581 + 1=582. 
516—167=349—22 /; & 72=327— 193=1 34-10 /> (19]) 

=124. 448—124=324+1=325. 
516—167=349—22 d & 72=327—30=297—193=104. 

284—104=180+1=181. 
516—167=349—22 /' & 72=327—50=277. 
516—167=349—22 /; & 72=327—50=277-145 (76:2) 

=132—11 />& 72=121. 
516—167=349—22 d & 72=327—50=277—145=132 

—7 /'=125. 
516—167=349—22 d & 72=327—50=277. 284—277 

=7+1=8. 
516—167=349—22 /; & 72=327-193=134—15 /> & h 

=119. 284—119=165+1=166+6 72=172. 
516—167=349-22 /' & 72=327—50=277—49 (76:2)= 

228—4 /'=224. 
516—167=349—22 h & 72=327—248=79. 447—79= 

368+1=369+3 3=372. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




101 


76:1 


in 


(27) 


74:1 


the 


244 


74:1 


hole 


248 


74:1 


where 


550 


76:2 


he 


171 


75:1 


was 


M5 


76:1 


born 


94 


74:2 


and 


191 


74:2 


bred, 


192 


76:1 


one 


247 


74:1 


of 



27 



121 
125 
8 
172 
224 
372 



74:1 



the 



235 


74:1 peasant-to-w 


132 


74:2 of 


156 


75:1 the 


25 


74:1 West. 


182 


75:1 And 


582 


76:1 there 


325 


76:1 are 


181 


74:1 even 


277 


74:1 rumors 



74:1 



74:2 



74:1 



74:1 



76:2 



that 



both 



Will 



and 



his 



75:2 brother 



SHAKSPERE EV CAPABLE OF IVPITEVG THE FLA YS. 



731 



516— 167— 349— 22^ & /^=327— 50=277— 145 (76:2)= 
516—167=349—22 l> & //=327— 30=297— 193=104. 

508—104=404—5=405. 
516—167=349—22 d & //=327— 30=297— 50=247— 

145=102. 498—102=396+1=397. 
516—167=349—22 /> & /^=827— 30=297— 193=104 

—15 /, & //=89. 284—89=195+1=1964-6 A= 
516—167=349—22 /. & //=327— 50=277— 145 (76;2) 

=132—5 /' & /;=127. 
516— 167=3-19— 22 d & //=327~50=277— 193=84— 

15 /, & /,=69. 
516—167=349—22 /;& //=327— 30=297— 145=152. 

577—152=425+1=426+17 ^ & 7^=443. 
516—167=349—22 /' & //=327— 50=277— 50 (76:1)= 
516—167=349—22 /' & 7^=327- 50=277— 145 (76:2) 

=132—3 ^=129. 284—129=155 + 1=156. 
516—167=349—22 /' & 7^=327—30=297—5 7/=292. 
516—167=349—22 /' & 7^=327—254=73. 248—73 

=175+1=176. 
516—167=349—22 d & 7^=327-50=277-145=132. 

284—132=152+1=153. 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




132 


76:1 


did 


405 


75:2 


themselves 


397 


76:1 


follow 


202 


74:1 


that 


127 


76:1 


trade 


69 


76:2 


for 


443 


77:1 


some 


227 


76:1 


time 


156 


74:1 


before 


292 


76:1 


they 


176 


74:2 


came 



153 



r4:l 



here. 



Here are fifty-six more words, growing out of the same root-number: 516 — 167 
^349 — 22 /> & 7^^327, modified by 30 or 50, which gave us whole pages of narrative 
in the last chapter. We will see hereafter that we advance in order, from the more 
complex to the more simple; that is, the above root-number 327, obtained by count- 
ing in the 22 bracketed and hyphenated words in the second subdivision of column 
2 of page 74, is followed by 516 — 167^349, where we leave out of the count the 
22 bracketed and hyphenated words. And this is cunningly contrived, because 
one trying to unravel the Cipher would first undertake the more simple and obvious 
forms, and would scarcely think of obtaining a root-number by counting in the 
bracketed and hyphenated words in the second subdivision of column 2 of page 74, 
or any similar subdivision. 

The "brother" here referred to was Shakspere's brother Gilbert, born in 
1566, two years after Shakspere's birth. If Shakspere came to London in 1587, 
Gilbert was then twenty-one years of age. Very little is known of him. Halli- 
well-Phillipps thinks he was in later life a haberdasher in London.' 

But as his name does not occur in the subsidy lists of the period, it is not 
unlikely that he was either a partner with, or assistant to, some other tradesman 
of the same occupation. 

The fact that he is found in London accords with the intimation in the Cipher 
narrative, that he came there with his brother, and probably was at first also a 
hanger-on about the play-houses. 

The reader will here observe how the words o-/oTe' making grow out of the 
same root-number; one being 327 minus 30, the other 327 minus 50. Observe also 
how the terminul number 104 produces is, the, son, of, followed, glove, in, he, and, 
themselves, and that; while 277 gives us he, a, yet, the, of, making, was, the, 7-nmors 
that, both. Will, his, did. trade, for, time, and before. 

If there is no Cipher here, how could glove and making and all these other 
words grow out of 327 modified by 50 and 30? 



Outlines, pp. 23 and 24. 



CHAPTER XI. 

SHAKSPERE WOUNDED. 

This morning, like the spirit of a youth 
That means to be of note, begins betimes. 

.J ntony and Cleopatra, zV, 2. 

EVERY Ciplier word in tJiis chapter is t/ie jjSt/i ivord from the same 
points of departure as in the previous chapters. 
I gave in Chapter VI., page 694 ante, something of the story 
of Shakspere's youth, and yet but a fragment of it. I am of the 
opinion that it runs out, with the utmost detail and particularity, 
on the line of the root-number 338 [505—167 (74:2)=338] to the 
end of 2d Henry IV., and, possibly, to the beginning of ist Henry 
JV. I gave in Chapter IV. the statement that Shakspere — 

Goes one day and ivitli ten of Ins fotlozvers did lift the iiiater-i:;atc of the fish pond 
off the hinges, and turns all the water out from the pond, froze all the fish, and girdles 
the orchard. 

And also: 

They drew their weapons ajid fought a bloody fight, never stopping even to 
breathe. 

And further, that when he ran away from home — 

He left his poor young jade big with child. 

Now between the description of the destruction of the fish-pond 
and the account of the fight there comes in another fragment of the 
story. 

The narrative seems to be a confession, made by Field. Hence 
its particularity. It is believed that Richard Field, the printer, was 
a Stratford man. In 1592 Shakspere's father, with two others, was 
appointed to value the goods of "Henry Feelde, of Stratford, 
tanner," supposed to have been the father of Richard Field the 
printer." ' Halliwell-Phillipps asserts positively that he was his 
father.^ Richard Field was also, as I have shown, the first printer 
of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. 

- Collier's Englisli Dramatic Poetry, iii, 43Q. ^ Outlines, p. 69. 

73- 



SHAKSPERE WOUNDED. 



733 



505—167=338 
505—167=338 
505—167=338 
505—167=838 
505—167=338 
505—167=338 
505—167=338 
505—167=838- 
505—167=338- 
505—167=338- 
505—167=338- 
505—167=338- 
505—167=338 

448—190= 
505—167=338- 

=256+4 b- 
505—167=338- 

+ 1 /^=212 
505—167=338- 

=45. 508- 
-6—167=338- 

145=71. 



498—289=209+1= 
498— 288=210 -Hl= 



—284=54. 

—248=90—24 b & h (248)=66— 5 b= 
— 49 (74:2)=289. '" ^"" '^' ' 
—50 (76:1)=288. 
—6 //=382. 

—284=54. 237—54=183 + 1=184. 
. 498—338=160+1=161 + 10 b & h= 
—284=54+28 (73:2)=82. 
-284=54—18 b&h (284)=36. 
-284=54. 

-145 (76:2)=193— 4 h col. =189. 
-50=288—146 (76:2)=142— 3 b (146)= 
—145 (76:2)=193— 3 b (145)=190. 
=258+1=259. 

-145(76:2)=193. 448—198=255+1 
'=260. 
-50=288. 498—288=210+1=211 

.-.O (74:2)=288— 193=95— 50 (76:1) 

-45=463+1=464. 

-50=288—22 b & /^=266— 50=216— 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




54 


73:2 


And 


61 


74:1 


while 


214 


76:1 


we 


211 


76:1 


are 


383 


75:1 


thus 


184 


73:2 


busily 


171 


70:1 


engaged 


82 


73:2 


my 


36 


73:2 


Lord 


54 


78:2 


and 


189 


77:1 


some 


139 


76:1 


of 


259 


76:1 


his 


260 


76:1 


followers 


212 


76:1 


set 


464 


75:3 


upon 


71 


76:1 


us. 



The reader will observe that every word of this sentence is derived from the 
same root-number (505 — 167=338), and he will also note how often the terminal 
root-number, 54, is used. 

Then follows the description of the " bloody fight" given in Chapter VI. 

The story of Shakspere's deer-killing is found in the latter part of ist Hcn7y IV. 
We take the same root-number, 505 — 167=338. and, commencing on the first 
column of page 73 (part of "The Heart of the Mystery"), we find that, by inter- 
mingling the terminal fragments of the second scene of 2d Henry IV. with the 
terminal fragments of the last scene of 2d Hen}y IV., we get these words: 



505—167=338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 79 (73:1)= 

160. 588—160=428 + 1=429. 
505—167=888—30=308—198=115—1/^ col.=114. 
505—167=888—50=288—169 (78:1)=119— 1 h 

(169)=118. 346—118=238+1=229. 
505—167=338—50=288—142 (73:1)=146— 1 // (142) 

=145 + 170=815—1 h col. =314. oit 

505—167=338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 90 (78:1)= 149 

: Kt\ ocQ iftn/'7Q.i\ 110 1 I. IM\a\ 11Q 



429 

114 

229 
814 



72:2 
75:1 



73:1 



Jack 
spur 

hath 



505— 1 67=888— 50=2^ 
505—167—338—50=288- 



169 (78:1)=119— 1 // (169)= 118 
142 (78:1)=146— 1 // (142)= 145 



73:3 


killed 


73:2 


many 


72:3 


a 


73:3 


deer. 



As I have before noted. Jack had probably in that day the sound of shack, for 
the word, being derived from the French, retained the sh or zk sound. We find 
this given by Webster io Jacquerie. The vfovAJack will be found repeatedly used, 
in the Cipher, for the first syllable of the name of Shakspere. It will be noted in 
this example that out of seven words all are derived from 338 — 50^^288, except 
one, which is 33S — 30; two are derived from 2S8 — 169=119; two from 288 — 49 



734 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



(76:1)^239, and two are derived from 28S — 142=146. This recurrence of terminal 
root-numbers is very significant. I would explain that 142 is the number of words 
from the end of the first subdivision of 73:1 to the bottom of the column; and 79 
and 90 are, of course, the two other principal subdivisions of that column. And 
the reader will observe that to obtain 338 — 169 we have deducted the number "of 
words from the top of the first subdivision of 73:1 down the column; while when 
we have 338 — 142 we h," ve the number of words from the bottom of that same sub- 
division down the same column. It will thus be seen that there is a relation and 
an order in the formation of the sentence; that it moves from the two ends of the 
same subdivision. 

It seems that Shakspere and "our party" had killed a deer, made a fire and 
had the body " half eaten: " 



Word. 

505—167=338—141 (73:1)=197. 237—197=40+1= 41 
505— 167=338— 30 (74: 2)=808— 50 (76:1)=258. 588 

—258=330+1=331 + 1 // =332. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 50 (76:1)=258. 284 

—258=26 + 1=27 + 7 /^ col . =34. - 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 27 

(73:1)=231. 
505—167=338—193 (75:1)=145. 
505—167=338—169 (73:1)=169— 1 // (169)=168. 237 

—168=69+1=70+3 b col.=73. 
505—1 67=338—30 (74:2)=308— 50=258. 
505— 1 87=338— 30=308— 1 98 (74 :2)=1 1 +1 94=304 



332 

34 

231 
145 

73 

258 



Page and 

Column. 

73:2 



r4:l 



72:2 



r3:2 



— 7/;&// col. =297. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308- 
b!^h col. =245. 



-50 (76:1)=258— 13 



291 



24.^ 



r4:l 



The 

body 

of 

the 
deer 

was 
indeed 

half 

eaten. 



If the reader will count down from the top of 74:1 he will find the word eaten 
cunningly hidden in the middle of the hyphenated word worui-taten-hole. 



505 167—338 30—308 198—110. 


110 


75:1 


He 


505 167—338 30—308 198 (74:2)— 110-^194— 304. 


304 


75:1 


found 


505—167=338—30=308—141 (73:1)=167. 170— 








167—3 + 1—4. 


4 


72:2 


it 


505 167—338 193—145+346 (72:2)— 491 1 // col. 


= 490 


72:2 


lying 


505— 167— 338— 80— 308— 141(73:1)— 167. 


167 


72:2 


by 


505—167=338—141=197. 237—197=40+1=41 








+ 3 /' col. =44. 


44 


73:2 


the 


505 167—338—30—308 50—258 79—179 








—1 k (79)=178. 237—178—59+1—60. 


60 


73:2 


foot 


505— 167-^338-28 (73:1)— 310. 588 310—278+1= 


279 


72:2 


of 


505— 167=338— 30=308— 141 (73:1)=167. 588— 








167=421+1=422. 


422 


72:2 


a 


505—167=338—30=308—141=167. 237—167 








=70+1=71. 


71 


78:2 


hill. 



Let the reader consider for an instant how different are the words that are 
here the 338th from certain clearly established points of departure, as compared 
with the words produced by 523 — 167=356; or as compared with those which came 
out from 505 and 523 minus the subdivisions of 75:1. Compare: Shakspere had 



SHAKSPERE WOUNDED. . y^e 

killed many a deer; . . . the body of the deer %vas half eaten. He found it lying by 
the foot of a hill; with: Ho-u' is this derived? Sazv you the Earl? etc. ; or: Her 
Grace is ftirious and hath sent out, etc.; or: With this pipe he hath blown the flame of 
rebellion almost into open -war, etc. In every case the character of the words is 
totall)' diiTerent. 

The Cipher story proceeds to tell how Sir Thomas Lucy and his son came upon 
the scene — they had a light with the poachers and drove them off. We have: 

Page and 

Word. Column. 

505— 167=338— 30=308- 50 (76:1)=258— 27 (73:1) 

=231 + 170 (72:3)=401. 401 '12:2 We 
505—167=338—30=308—142 (73:1)=166. 347 

(72:2)+166=513. 513 72:2 fought 

505— 167=338— 30=308— 141 (73:1)=167+ 170 (72:2)=337 72:2 a 

505—167=338—141 (73:1)=197. 197 72:2 hot 

505— 167=338— 28 (73:1 )=310. 310 72:2 and 
505—167=338—142 (73:1)=196. 346—196=150+1 

=151+2// col. =153. 153 73:2 bloody 

505—167=338—141 (73:1)=197. 197 73:2 fight. 

Certainly, if all this is accident, it is extraordinary that the accident on one page 
should precisely accord with the accident on all other pages; that is to say — 505 
— 167=338, minus 30 and 50, tells us the story of the last " bloody fight," when 
the boys of Stratford destroyed Sir Thomas Lucy's fish-pond, and here we have the 
account (by the same 505 — 167=338 — 30 and 50) of a previous "hot and bloody 
fight," when Sir Thomas found them devouring the body of a deer. And it was 
in revenge ^or 'mnishment inflicted for the first fray — 

[505— 167=388— 142 (73:1 )=1 96. 347 (72:2)— 196= 

151 +1=- 152+2 // col. =154. 154 73:2 fray]— 

that the young desperadoes organized the riot to destroy the fish-pond. And in 
this latter fight Shakspere was badly wounded, shot by a pistol in the hands of Sir 
Thomas Lucy. The story is too long to give here in detail. Every letter from my 
publishers is i cry of despair about the increasing size of this work; and some of 
my malignant and ungenerous critics are clamoring that my book will never 
appear. I cf n therefore only give extracts from the story. It runs through a great 
part of page 72 of ist Henry IV. My Lord, for he was lord of the barony, and his 
son, are mov nted and armed. And here we have the word barony, the I4gth word of 
the 75:1 obtained from the same root-number, thus: 

505— 167=- .38— 50 (74:2)=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 90 

(73:1^=149. 149 75:1 barony 

They '•ome -ivith all their household: 

505— 167-=338— 50=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 79 (73:1) 

=160. 284—160=134+1=135. 135 74:1 with 

50.5— lC'^-=338— 50=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 90 (73:1)= 149 74:1 household; 

a great multitude; and to find multitude, we repeat the last coimt but one, adding 
in, howc^-er, the hyphenated words, thus: 

505—16-^=338-50=288-49 (76:1)=239— 79 (73:1) 

-=160. 284— 160=124+1=125+7// col. =132. 132 74:1 multitude 



736 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



Word. 



Page and 

Column. 



And here we have great: 



505—167=338—237=101- 
=71 + 1=72. 



59 



■■Q.O 



The 



-3 b (237)=98. 169—98 

72 73:1 great 

The number go represents the end of scene 3 on 73:1; and the number 79 that 
part of the next scene in the same column. See how the same number, 149, pro- 
duces barotiy and household; while the corresponding number, 160, produces luith 
and multitude. 

And here we find the story running on, and the same terminal numbers, 149, 
160, etc., continuing to produce significant words. We can see the philosophy of 
every word; they come either from deducting the whole of the first column of page 
73 or the whole of the second column, or the fragments of each. We have had the 
body of the half-eaten deer — found lying by the foot of the hill- — -the hot and bloodv 
fight — the lord of the barony coming zvith 3l great multitude of his household. And 
Shakspere ran away, and — 

505—167=338—30=308—79=179. 237—179=58 

4-1=59. 
505— 167=338— 50=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 79=160. 

237— 160=77 -f 1=78. 
505—167=338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 79 (73:1)= 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—198 (74:2)= 

61 + 193=254—5 b & h col. =249. 
505— 1 67=838— 50=288— 49 (76 : 1 )=239— 79= 1 60- 

1 h (79)=159. 237—159=78+1=79. 
505— 1 67=338— 50=288— 169 (73 : 1)=1 19. 
50.5—167=338—50=288—49=239—90=149. 
505—167=338—50=288—169=119—1 h (169)=118. 

588—118=470+1=471. 
505_1 67=338—50=288—49=239—79= 1 60. 1 70 + 

160=330. 
505_167=338— 30=808— 50 (76:1)=258— 79 (73:1)= 
• .505—167=338—50=288—50 (76:1)=238— 63 (27 to 91) 

=175. 237-175=62+1=63+3?^ col.=66. 
505_i67=338—50=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 90=148. 
50.5— 1 67=338— 50=288— 49 (76 : 1 )=239— 90=149 . 
50.5—167=338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259— 78 (79 d) 

=181. 237—181=56+1=57. 
505—1 67=338-30=308—50=258-79 (73 : 1 )= 1 79— 

1 /z(79)=178. 237— 178=59+l=60+3/^col.=63. 

I do not pretend, for the reason stated, to give the whole account of this first 
raid of the Stratford boys, but simply to call attention to the fact that this page 73 
is as full of arithmetical adjustments, with 505 — 167=338, as we found it to be in 
Chapter IV. with 505 — 284, and 523 — 284, etc. 

In the presence of Percy in this story we probably have the explanation of the 
original relationship of Bacon with Shakspere. Percy was Bacon's servant; he 
was, it seems, from Stratford, and he was Shakspere's friend; hence when Bacon, 
after Marlowe's death, needed another mask, Percy, Bacon's confidant, doubtless 
suggested Shakspere. 

And here we have the account of how Sir Thomas charged on the insurgents, 
who were destroying the fish-pond: 



78 


74:2 


pursuers 


(160) 


74:2 


followed 


249 


75:1 


and 


79 


73:2 


took 


119 


73:2 


him 


149 


74:2 


prisoner. 



471 



72:2 



Percy 



330 


72:2 


and 


179 


73:2 


the 


66 


73:2 


rest 


148 


73:2 


of 


149 


73:2 


our 



57 



63 



73:2 



73:2 



men 



fled. 



SHAKSPERE WOUNDED. 



737 



Word. 

505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1)=358— 248 (74:1) 

=10. 193—10=183 + 1=184. 184 
4305—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 50 

(74:2)=188+193=381— 4// col.=377. 377 

505—167=338—254 (75:1)=84— 9 b&h col.=75. 75 
505—167=338—80 (74:2)=308— 198=110. 193—110 

=83+1=84. 84 

505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1)=258— 198=60. 60 
505—167=338—30=308—198=110. 193—110=83+ 

1=84+3 ('^col.=87. 87 

505—167=338—30=308—219=89—1 // col.=88. 88 

605—167=338—50=288—248=40—7 b col.=33. 33 

505—167=338—248=90. 90 

505—167=338—30=308—219 (74:2)=89. 89 

505—167=338—30=308—248=604-194=254. 254 

505—167=338—248=90—9 /' & // col. =81. 81 

505—167=338—30=308—219=89—7 b col.=82. 82 

505—1 67=338—248=90—7 /; col . =83. 83 

505—167=338—254 (75:1)=84. 84 

505—167=338—50=288—219 (74:2)=69. 69 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50 (76:i;=258— 198=60 

+ 193=253. 253 

505— 167=338— 49 (76:1)=289. 447—289=158+1= 159 

505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1 ;=258— 319 (74:2;= 39 

505—167=338—193=145. 145 



Page and 
Column. 



75:1 

75:1 
75:1 

75:1 
75:1 

75:1 
75:1 

75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 
75:1 

75:1 
75:1 
^5:1 
75:2 



My 

Lord 
struck 

his 
spur 

up 
to 

the 
rowell 
against 

the 

panting 

sides 

of 

his 

horse 

and 

rode 

him 

dowrn. 



Here are twenty words, all originating out of the same number, which has been 
telling the story of Shakspere's youth for many pages past, to-wit: 505 — 167=338; 
and all but one of the twenty are found in the first column of page 75; and the 
greater part, 16 out of 20, are found in the first subdivision of that column. If 
this be accident, certainly there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. 

And Sir Thomas shoots Shakspere, leaving a scar that marked him for life. 
Prof. John S. Hart thought he saw the traces of such a scar in the Dusseldorf death- 
mask. And Bacon, to still better carry out the delusion, that Shakspere was Shake- 
speare, wrote in one of the sonnets — the 112th: 

Your love and pity doth the impression fill 
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow. 

The story, I have said, goes back to the beginning of scene 3, act v, page 71, 
of 1st Henry IV., and [he pis to/ is found in 71:2, as will appear below. 
We are told: 



505— 167=338— 30=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 193=65. 

193—65=128+1=129+1 7^=130. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50(74 :2)=258. 
505—167=338—30=308—247 (74:2 up)=61. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 26 b&h col=262. 
505—167=338—30=308. 
505—167=338—248=90+194=284. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238. 



130 


75:1 


My 


258 


71:2 


Lord 


61 


75:1 


was 


262 


75:1 


furious 


308 


75:1 


He 


284 


75:1 


drewT 


238 


75:1 


his 



73« 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 169 (73:1)=120. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 198=60 

+ 193=253. 
505—167=338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259— 213 (71:2) 

=46—1 h (213)=45. 458—45=413+1=414. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 248=41— 22 b (248)= 

19—3 b col.=16. 
505—167=338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259— 198 (74:2) 

=61—24 b & // (198)=37. 
505—167=338—30=308—248 (74:2)=60. 284-60 

=224+ 1=225. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 219 (76:1)=89. 193 

—89=114+1=115+6 b&h=\%\. 
505—167=338—284=54. 
505—167=338—30=308—193=115—15 bhh (193) 

=100+193=293. 
505—167=338—30=308—248 (74:2)=60. 193—60 

=133+1=134+1 h col.=135. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289. 433—289=144+1= 
505— 167=338— 50=288— 218 (74:2)=70. 
505—167=338—30=308—248 (74:2)=60— 22 b (248) 

=38—5 b col. =33. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50 (76 : 1)=258—1 93=65. 

508—65=443+1=444. 
505—167=338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259— 198 (74:2) 

=61—22 b (198)=39. 
505—167 338—30=308—248 (74:2)=60— 24 b & // 

(248)=36— 5 b col. =31. 
505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1)=258— 248 (74:2)= 
505—167=338—30=308—50 (76 :1)=258— 50=208— 

146=62+162=224—5 b col =219. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 254=54. 284—54=230 + 

1=231+5 /icol.=236. 
505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1)=258— 248 (74:2) 

=10+193=203. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 248 (74:2)=41 

447—41=406+1=407. 



Nord.. 
120 


Page and 

Column. 

71:2 


pistol 


253 


75:1 


and 


414 


71:1 


shot 


16 


75:1 


him, 


37 


75:1 


and, 


225 


74:1 


as 


121 
54 


75:1 
75:1 


ill 
luck 



293 



75:1 



would 



135 


75:1 


have 


145 


71:1 


it, 


70 


75 •! 


the 


88 


74:1 


ball 


444 


75:2 


hit 


89 


75:1 


him 


31 


74:1 


on 


10 


74:1 


the 


219 


78:1 


forehead. 


236 


74:1 


between 


203 


75:1 


the 


407 


75:1 


eyes. 



Observe here the recurrence of remarkable words, fitting precisely to 505 — 167 
=338 : dretv — pistol — shot — ball — hit — forehead — betiveen — eyes; — with all the 
other words descriptive of a heady conflict: hot and bloody fif^ht — struck — spiir — 



tip — to — ro-tvel — against — panting — sides - 



rode him do-ivn; — Aly Lord, 



furious, etc., etc. After a while we will find this same 505 — 167=338 describing- 
Shakspere's ailments and Ann Hathaway 's appearance, and selecting out of the body 
of the text, as if with the wand of a magician, an entirely different series of words. 
And I will ask the reader to note that Imll occurs but once in 2d Henry IV., 
and shot but once in ist Henry IV.; pistol, as the name of a weapon, does not 
occur once in 2d Henry IV. ^ and but twice in ist Henry IV.; hit occurs but 
once in 2d Henry IV.; forehead occurs but this one time in both of the plays; 
ro7vel oacMxs but this one time in both these plays, and but once more in all the 



SHAKSPERE WOUNDED. 



739 



Plays. And yet here we find all these rare words coming together in the text, and 
in a short space; and all of them tied together by the root-number, 505 — 167=338. 
What kind of a cyclone of a miracle was it that swept them all in here in a bunch 
together, and made each the 338th word from a clearly defined point of departure ? 
But the marvel does not end here: 505 — 167=338 has many more coherent 
and marvelous stories to unravel before we have done with it. 



CHAPTER XII. 



E 



SHAKSPERE CARRIED TO PRISON. 

Away with him to prison. 

Measure for Measure, v, I, 

VERY Cipher word in this chapter grows out of the root-number 
^05—167=338. 



At first it was thought that Shakspere was killed outright. We 
read : 



505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 248=40— 9 b & //=31. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 193=95— 15 b & h 

(193)=80. 284—80=204+1=205. 
505-167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 248 (74:2)=41— 

5^ col. =36. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 254 (75:1)=35— 

15/;&/^(254)=20. 
505-167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 248 (74:2)=41— 

%b &, h col. =35. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 10/' col.=279. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 198 (74:2)=91. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 198 (74:2)=91. 

284—91=193+1=194. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 198 (74:2)=90. 

284—90=194+1=195. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 248 (74:2)=41— 

22 b (248)=19. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 49 (76:1)=239. 

508—239=269+1=270+8 b col.=278. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 24/; col.=(265). 
505-167=338-50 (76:1)=288— 49 (76:1)=239. 

508—239=269+1=270+2 h col.=272. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 193= 

55 + 193==258— 5 /' & h col. =253. 
505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1)=258— 4// col.= 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 193=65. 

193+65=258—3 /; col. =255. 
505—1 67=338—30=308—50 (76 : 1 )=258— 193=65. 

193+65=258—2/^ col.=256. 

740 



Word. 
31 


Page and 
Column. 

75:1 


He 


205 


74:1 


fell 


36 


74:1 


upon 


20 


74:1 


the 


35 

279 

91 


74:1 
74:1 
74:1 


earth. 

They 

thought 


194 


74:1 


at 


195 


74:1 


first, 


19 


74:1 


from 


278 
(265) 


75:2 
75:2 


his 
bloody 



272 



75:2 appearance 



253 


75:1 


and 


254 


75:1 


the 


255 


75:1 


whiteness 


256 


75:1 


in 



SHAKSPERE CARRIED TO PRISON. 



741 



505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1)=258— 197 (74:2) 

=61—24 b&h (198)=37— 9 b&h col. =28. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 193=65. 

193+65=258. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50 (76 : 1 )=258— 1 93=65— 

15/;&//(193)=50. 
505—167=338- =308—50 (76:1)=258— 193=65. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288. 447-288=159+1 

=160+11 ^col.=171. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 193=65. 

447—65=382+1=383. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 218 (74:2)=71— 

1 h col. =70. 
505—167=338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259. 284— 

259=25+1=26+7// col. =33. 
505—167=338—193=145. 508—145=363+1=364 

^-l/^=365. 
505—167=338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239. 447—239 

=208+1=209+2 //=211. 
505— 167:^338— 50=288— 49 (76:1)=239. 
505—167=338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259— 13 b & h= 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 198 (74:2)=90. 193 

+90=283—3 b col.=280. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 197 (74:2)=91— 22 b 

(197)=69. 284—69=215+1=216+6 //=222. 
505—167=338—30=308—50 (76:1)=25S. 447—258 

=189+1=190+13^=203. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 218 (74:2)=71. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 49 (76:1)=259— 219 

(74:2)=40. 
505—167=338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 237 (73:2) 

=2 + 90=92. 
505—167=338—193=145—15 b & 7^=130. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




28 


75:1 


his 


258 


75:1 


cheek, 


50 
65 


75.1 
75:1 


that 
he 


171 


75:1 


was 


383 


75:1 


dead. 


70 


75:1 


The 


33 


74:1 


ball 


365 


75:2 


made 


211 
239 
246 


75:1 
75:1 
74:1 


the 

ugliest 

hole 


280 


75:1 


in 


222 


74:1 


his 


203 

71 


75:1 
75:1 


fore i 
head \ 



40 

92 
130 



75:1 

73:1 

75:2 



ever 
saw. 



Observe how cunningly the length of column i of page 74 is adjusted to the 
word ball so that the root-number 505 — 167=338 brings it out the first time going 
do7un the column and again going up the column. Observe, also, the matchless 
ingenuity of the work. We have seen ivorm-eaten-hole furnish the world eaten, as 
descriptive of the half-consumed deer; now we find it giving us the word hole; and 
anon we shall see it used as a whole — ivonn-eaten-hole — to describe the prison to 
which Shakspere was taken. In the above example it is difficult to express in fig- 
ures the way in which we get the word hole, but if the reader will count down the 
column (74:1), counting in the bracketed and hyphenated words, he will find that 
the 259th word is, as I state, the word hole. The same is true of the word fore, 
the first part of fore-head; it is the 258th word by actual count up 75:1 counting in 
the bracketed words, although it is difficult to express the formula in figures. And 
how marvelous is it that we not only find the word forehead, (which only occurs 
once in these two plays), as given in the last chapter, cohering with 338, but here 
we have again the elements to constitute the word, and each of the two words is 
again the 338th word. And if fore-tells had not been separated, in the Folio, into 



742 THE CIPHER NARKA I'TVE. 

two words — a very unusual course — by a hyphen, this result would have been 
impossible; as well as that curious combination foiiiul-oiit, and half the cipher 
work given in the preceding pages. The reader will thus perceive the small 
details upon which the whole matter turns; and how impossible it is that 148 
bracketed and hyphenated words could be scattered through these three pages, 
by accident, in such positions as to bring out this wonderful story. Such a thing 
can only be believed by those who think that man is the result of a fortuitous 
conglomeration of atoms, and that all the thousand delicate adjustments revealed 
in his frame came there by chance. 

Observe, also, that in the foregoing examples the count for the words, fell itpon 
the earth; they thought at first from, ox\g\v\2X^s in each instance from the fragment 
of scene 2, on 76:1; and the words are all found on 74:1; and that every word of 
the whole long sentence of thirty-six words, with two exceptions, originated in the 
same fragment of a scene, the 49 or 50 words at the bottom of 76:1; and that out 
of the thirty-six words thirty-one are found on 74:1 or 75:1. 

505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 49 (76:l)=2^j9— 219 

(74:2)=40— 9/;&// col.=31. 31 75:1 He 

505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 254 (75:1)=35. 284 

—35=249 + 1=250+3 //col.=253. 253 74:1 lies 

505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 218 (74:2)=70— 

34/,&/,=46. 46 73:2 quite 

505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308-49 (76:1)=259. 284 

—259=25+1=26. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259. 
505—167=338. 448 (76:1)— 338=110+1=111 + 

3 /; col. =114. 
505—167=338—50=288. 498 (76:1)— 238=210+1= 
505—167=338—30=308. 448 (76:1)— 308=140+1= 

141 + 3// col. =144. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 5 h col.=283. 
505— 167=338— 49(76:1)=289— 218 (74:2)=71— 9/^ &//=62 75:1 cold. 

Here, again, every word is 505 — 167=338, minus 30 or 50; every one begins 
on 76:1, and all but one of the last seven are found on 76:1. 

We have the whole story of the fight told with the utmost detail. I am not 
giving it iu any chronological order. Shakspere, before Sir Thomas shot him, 
had not been idle. Sir Walter Scott was right when he supposed, in A'enihcvorth, 
that William was a good hand at singlestick. We read: 

505—167=338—30=308—49=259—90=169. 237 

—169=68+1=69+3 ^col.=72. 72 73:2 He 

505—167=338—30=308—50 (76 :2)=258— 90=168 

— 50 (74:2)=118. 284—118=166+1=167. 167 74:2 hath 

505—167=338—30=308—50=258—90=168. 168 74:1 beaten 

505— 167=338— 30=308— 50=258— 63 (79)=195— 

3 h col.=192. 192 76:1 one 

505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 79=1 79—49 

(76:1)=130. 508— 130=378 +1=379 +3 /'=382. 382 76:1 of 

505— 167=338— 50=288— 49=239— 90 (73:1)=149 

— 7 /^ col.=142. 142 74.2 the 



26 


74:1 


still. 


259 


76:1 


His 


114 


76:1 


wounds 


211 


76:1 


are 


144 


76:1 


stiff 


288 


76:1 


from 


283 


76:1 


the 



SHAKSPERE CARRIED TO PRISON. 



743 



Page and 



505—167=338—30=308—50=258—90=168—50 

(76:1)=118. 508—118=390+1=391 + 1 7^=393. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—3 h col. =92 
505—167=838—49=289—254=35—15 b & //=20. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /' & // col. =80 

—9 b & A col. =71. 
505—107=338—30=308—193=115. 193—115=78 

+ 1=79+3 /;col.=82. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—79=179—50 

(76:1)=129— 1 /i col.=128. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95. 508—95=413 

+ 1=414+1 7^=415. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95+193=288. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—90=169. 284 

—169=115+1=116+7 7^ col. =123. 
505—167=338—193=145—49 (71 :)=96. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—90=168—49 

(76:1)=119. 508—119=389+1=390. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—90=168—50 

(76-.: ;=118. 508—118=390+1=391. 
505—107=338—30=308—49 (79:1)=259— 90 (73:1)= 
505—1 67=338—30=308—50=258—79 (73 : 1 )= 1 79 

—20 /' & h col. =159. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—79=180. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—79=179—1 h (79) 

=178—50=128. 508— 128=380 + 1=381 +4-6 & k= 
505—167=338—49=289—254=35. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—90=169. 193— 

169=24+1=25+6 b & 7/=31. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 b & 7/=80. 

284—80=204 + 1=205. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—63=195—50 

(76:1)=145. 
505-167=338—30=308-49=259-90=169—145 

=24. 577—24=553+1=554. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /' & /i (193)= 
505—167=338—49=289 -254 (75:2)=35. 
505—1 67=338—30=308—49=259—79=1 80—50 

(76:1)=130. 508—130=378 + 1=379. 
505—167=338—49=289—254=35—15 /' & 7/=20. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—28 (73:1)=230 

—22 b & 7/=208. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—28 (73:1)= 

230—1 7/=229. 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—28 (73:1)=230 

—145=85—3 b (145)=82. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 90=1 68— 

7 b col.=161. 



iVord. 


Column. 




392 


75:2 


keepers 


92 


76:1 


o'er 


20 


74:1 


the 



82 
258 

128 



390 



75:1 



r5:l 



76:1 



75:2 



head, 

sides 
and 

back, 



415 


75:2 


with 


288 


75:1 


the 


123 


74:1 


blunt 


96 


76:1 


edge 



of 



391 


75:2 


his 


169 


76:2 


stick, 


159 


74:2 


till 


180 


76:2 


it 


=385 


75:2 


breaks; 


35 


75:2 


or 


31 


75:1 


he 


205 


74:1 


fell 


145 


75:2 


down 


554 


77:1 


to 


80 


75:1 


the 


35 


74:1 


earth 


379 


75:2 


under 


20 


74:1 


the 


208 


75:1 


heavy 


229 


75:1 


weight 


82 


76:1 


of 


161 


75:1 


his 



744 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 28 (73 : 1)=230 
_145=85— 2 h col. =83. 



Word. 



83 



Page and 

Column. 

76:1 



blows. 



It was then that Sir Thomas put spurs to his horse and charged on Shakspere^ 
as narrated in the last chapter, and shot him. 

One of the men looked at Shakspere and said : 



505—167=338-50=288— 198=90— 22 b (198)=68. 

447—68=379+1=380. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95. 
505—167=338—50=288—198=90. 447—90=357+1= 
505—167=338—50=288—198=90—22 /'=68. 447 

—68=379+1=380+3 /;=383. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 49=259— 79=1 80— 50 

(76:1)=130. 508—130=378+1=379+4 h col.= 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 90 (73 : 1 )=1 68 

—49=119. 603—119=484 + 1=485+3 b col.= 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /' & 7^=80-49 

(76:1)=31. 193—31=162+1=163. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /' & //=80— 

50 (76:1)=30— 7 b col.=23. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /' & 7^=80- 

50=30. 447—30=417+1=418+2 /;=420. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 h & //=80— 50= 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 b & 7^=80 

—49 (76:1)=31. 
505—167=338—30=308—198=110—1 A col.=109. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /' & 7^=80 

—49 (76:1)=31. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 b & 7/=80. 

447—80=367+1=368. 
505—167=338—50=288—198=90—24 b & h (198) 

=66 + 193=259—3 b col. =256. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /' & 7/=80 

+ 193=273— 3 ^ col. =270. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 /; & 7^=80+ 

193=273. 
505—167=338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259— 90 (731)= 
505—167=338—30=308—49 (76 : 1)=259— 90=1 69. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—143 (73:1)=116. 
505— 167=338— 50=288— 193=95— 50 (76:1)=45 

+ 193=238—2 //=236. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 b & 7/=80. 

447—80=367+1=368+3 b=Ti\. 
505—167=338—30=308—193=115. 447—115= 

333+1=333+8 h col.=341. 
505-167=338—30=308—193=115. 193—115= 

78 + 1=79. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 49=259— 90 (73:1)=169. 
193—169=24+1=25 + 3 /' col. =28. 



380 


75:1 


95 


75:1 


358 


75:1 



75:1 



Why, 
he 
is 



dead. 



383 


75:2 


His 


488 


76:2 


Lordship 


163 


75:1 


then 


23 


75:1 


stopped 


420 


75:1 


his 


= 30 


75:1 


horse 


31 


75:2 


and 


109 


75:1 


saidi 


31 


75:1 


He 


368 


75:1 


is 


256 


75:1 


in 


270 


75:1 


a 


273 


75:1 


faint. 


169 


73:2 


Bend 


169 


74:1 


down 


116 


74.1 


and 


236 


75:1 


put 


371 


75:1 


your 


341 


75:1 


ear 


79 


75:1 


against 


28 


75:1 


his 



iVord. 


Page and 

Column. 




100 


74:3 


heart, 


113 


77:1 


to 


20 


75:2 


see 


129 


75:1 


if 


110 


75:1 


he 



SHAKSPERE CARRIED TO PRISON. 745 



505—167=338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 90=149. 

348—149=99 + 1=100. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 145 (76 : 1 )=1 1 3. 
505—167=338—49=289—254=35—15 /' & 7^=20. 
505— 167=338— 50=288— 198=90— "4 /' & h (198)= 

66. 193—66=127 + 1=128+1 /;=129. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 1 98=1 10. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95—15 b & //=80. 

447—80=367+1=368. 368 75:1 is 

505—167=338—30=308—49=259—90=169— 

4 /' col. =165. 165 76:1 yet 

505—167=338—30=308—49=259—79=180+193 

=373— 4 // col. =369. 369 75:1 living. 

Here we have still more pages upon pages, growing" out of that same number, 
505 — 167=338. And note the unusual words: beaten — keepers — blunt — edge — stick 
— breaks; — earth — under — heavy — loeiglit — blo'cs; — bend — down — //// — ear — 
against — heart — faint — living, etc. The word stick occurs only one other time in 
these two plays; the word keepers appears only on this occasion; the word keeper is 
found, however, once in this play. 

505—167=338—30=308—49=259. 

505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 49=259— 28 (73 : 1 )=231 

—10/' col. =221. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—143 (73:1)= 

116. 284— 11C=168+ 1=169. 
505-167=338—49=289—254=35. 248—35=213 

+ 1=214+1/^=215. 
505—167=338—49=289—254=35. 248—35=213 

+ 1=214+2 b & 7^=216. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—143=116. 
505—167=338—30=308—198=110. 194+110=304. 304 
505—167=338—30=308—193=115—15 /' & 7/=100 

—50 (76:1)=50. 
505—167=338—49=289—254=35—7 /^ col. =28. 
505—167=338—30=308—193=115—15 b & 7/=100. 
505—167=338—209 (73:2)=129. 
505— 1 67=338—49 (76:1 )=289— 145=144. 
505—167=338—30=308—193=115—15 b & h=100 

—49=51. 448—51=397+1=398. 398 76:1 He 

505—167=338—30=308—49=259—145=114— 

6 b & 7/=108. 108 

505— 167=338— 146 (76:1)=192. 237—192=45 + 1= 46 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259. 284—259=25+1= 26 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—28 (73 :1 )=230— 

218 (76:1)=12. 447—12=435+1=436. 436 
505—167=338—30—308—193=115—10 b col. =105. 105 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 193=115— 15 / & h 

=100—7 b col.=93. ■ 93 

505—167=338—30=308—49=259—193=66—5 / col. =61 



259 


76:2 


He 


221 


74:1 


stooped 


169 


74:1 


down 


215 


74:2 


to 


216 


74:2 


listen. 


116 


74:1 


and 


304 


75:1 


found 


50 


75:1 


that 


28 


75:1 


his 


100 


74:1 


heart 


129 


74:1 


still 


144 


75:2 


beat. 



77:1 


lay 


73:2 


quite 


74:1 


still 


75:1 


for 


74:1 


a 


74:2 


good 


74:1 


whilej 



746 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Word. 

505— 167=338- -30=308— 193=115— 15 h & //=100 

—1 // col. =99. 99 

oOo— 167=338— 49 (76 :1)=289 -254=35. 248—35 

=213+1=214. 214 

505-167=338—49=289—254=35—15 /> & //=20 

+ 193=213. 213 

505-167=3^8—49 (76:1)=289— 248=41— 2 // (248j 

=39. 284—39=245 + 1=246. 246 

505-167=338—30=308—193=115. 284—115= 

169+1=170. 170 

505—167=338—145 (76:2)=193— 50 (76:1)=143. 

508—143=355+1=356+5 d & //=371. 371 

505-t167=338— 50=288— 193=95+193=288— 4 //= 284 
505-167=338-30=808—254=54-15 /^=39. 39 

505—167=338—30=308—50=258—193=65. 284— 

65=219 + 1=220+6 //=226. 226 

505—167=338—50=288—193=95. 447—95=352 + 1=353 
505 —1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 28 (73:1 )=230 

—219=12. 12 

505— 167=338-49=289— 254=35— 5 /; col.=30. 30 

505—167=338—50=288—193=115. 498—115= 

383+1=384. 384 

505-167=338-49=289—12 l> col. =277. 277 

505—167=338—50=288—254=34—7 i col. =27. 27 



Pag'e and 
Column. 



r6:2 



74:2 



5:1 



74:1 

74:1 

75:2 
75:1 

75:2 

74:1 
75:1 



at 
last 

the 

ragged 

young 

wretch 

drew 

a 

low^ 
sigh 



75:1 and 

74:1 commenced 

76:1 gasping 

61:1 for 

75:2 breath. 



Those who may insist that there is no Cipher here will have to explain the con- 
currence of all this remarkable array of words: ragged — young — wretch; — 
stooped — down; — listen — heart — beat; — low — sigh; — commenced — gasping — 
ireath, etc. It might be possible to work out a pretended Cipher story, consistmg 
mainly of small words — the its, the thes and the ands; but here in these four 
pages we have had every word necessary to tell not only the story of the kill- 
ing of the deer, and the destruction of the fish-pond, but the subsequent fight; the 
charge of Sir Thomas Lucy on horseback, the pistol shot, the fall of two wounded - 
men, the apparent death of Shakspere, Sir Thomas stopping his horse, the exam- 
ination for the signs of life, the low sigh of returning animation, and even the 
gasping for breath, as the injured Shakspere regains consciousness. Surely, if 
there is no Cipher here we can say of the text, as was said of Othello's hand- 
Icerchief: " There's magic in the web of it." 

But the miracle does not end here; we will see, hereafter, this same root- 
number going on to tell a wonderful story, which connects itself regularly and 
naturally with all that we have given in these pages. 

Take the following sentence. Here every word, as the reader will see, comes 
out of the same corner of the text, by the same root-number, to-wit: 338 mimis 50 
or 30, as heretofore; while the count originates either from the end of the second 
scene or the beginning of the third, in 76:1, the two being separated only by the 
title of the scene. 



505-167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 

4 b col. =245. 345 

505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 162 (78:1)=127— 

11 /; col.=116. 116 



r6:2 



But 



it 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




306 


76:1 


seemed 


871 


76:1 


his 


266 


78:1 


injuries 


107 


76:1 


were 


305 


76:1 


only 


110 


76:1 


flesh 


114 


76:1 


wounds. 



SHAKSPEKE CARRIED TO PRISON. 747 



505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 145=144. 448— 

144=304+1=305+1 // col. =306. 
505—167=838—49 (76:1)=289— 161 (78:1)=128. 

498—128=370 + 1=371. 
505— 167=338— 50 (76:1)=288— 30=258— 146=112 

_3 /; (146)=109 + 162=271— 5 /- col.=266. 
505—167=888—50 (76:1)=288— 30=258— 146 (76:2) 

=112—5 /■ & // col. =107. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 145=144. 448— 

144=304+1=305. 
505— 1 67=338— 49 (76:1 )=289— 30=259— 146=1 13 

_3 /, (146)=110. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 30=259— 145=114. 114 

And observe how in connection with all the words already given, descriptive of 
a bloody fight, and " gasping for breath," come in these words: seemed — injuries 
— ivere — only — flesh — wounds. This is the onlj' ivm.^ flesh occurs in this act; 
and the only time wound occurs in this scene; and this is the only time injuries is 
found in this act. Yet here they are all bound together by the same number. 

And here I would note, in further illustration of the actuality of the Cipher, 
that no ingenuity can cause 505 — 167=338 to tell the same story that is told by 
505 — 193=312, or by any other Cipher number. One Cipher number brings out 
■one set of words, which are necessary to one part of the narrative, while another 
-number brings out, even when going over the same text, an entirely different set of 
words. This will be made more apparent as we proceed. 

But what did Shakspere's associates do when he went down before his Lord- 
ship's pistol ? They did just what might have been expected — they ran away; and 
the Cipher tells the story. And here we still build the story around that same frag- 
ment of 49 words on 76:1 (intermixed with the first and last fragments, 50 and 30, 
on 74:2) which has given us so much of the recent narrative; assisted, also, by the 
next fragment of a scene, in the next column, — 145 or 146, 76:2. The first sub- 
division of the next column ends at the 457th word; the second begins at the 458th 
word. And to the end of the column there are 145 or 146 words, as we count down 
from 457 or 458. 

505—167=338—145=193—1 h col.=192. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289. 508—289=219+1= 
505—167=338—50 (74.2)=288. 508—288=220+1= 
505—167=838—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 

20/' col. =218. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 30 (74:2)=258— 

1 h col. =257. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308. 508—308=200 + 1 

=201 + 3// col. =204. 
505— 167=838-30=308— 29 (73:2)=279. 
505— 167=338— 49=289— 30=259— 79 (79:1)=180 

— 50(76:1)=130. 130 75:2 saw 

50 j_l 67=338— 49=289— 30=259— 1 46=1 1 8— 

3/'(146)=110. 
505—167=338—49=289—30 (74:2)=259— 10/^ col.= 
505—167=338. 448—338=110+1=111. 



192 


75:2 


All 


220 


75:2 


our 


221 


75:2 


men, 


218 


75:2 


so 


257 


75:2 


soon 


204 


75:2 


as 


279 


74:1 


they 



110 


77:1 


that 


249 


76:1 


he 


111 


76:1 


was 



748 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 30 (74:2)=258. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1) 289—30 (74:2)=259. 
505- -167=338—30=308—146=162—3 h (146)=159 

—%b&h col.=-150. 
505—1 67=338—49=289—50=239. 508-239= 

269 + 1=270. 
505— 167=338-49 (76:1)=289. 508—289=219 

+ l=220 + 3/^col.=223. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 24^ col.^(264). 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 50 (74:2)=238— 

22 b & h col. =216. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288. 508—288=220+1 

=221 + 13<!icol.=234. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 50 (74:2) =238. 

508— 238=270 +1=271 + 2 /^ col.=273. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288. 448—288=160+1= 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 145 (76:1)=143. 
505—167=338-50 (74:2)=288. 
505—167=338—145=193. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 

1 h col.=237. 
505—167=338-146 (76:2)=192— 22 /; & h col.=170. 
505—167=338. 508—338=170+1=171. 
505—167=338—145=193. 
505—167=338—30 (74 :2)=308— 49=259. 508— 

259=249+1=250. 
505—1 67=338—49=289—30=259—1 93=66. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 254=54— 50(76:l)=4+457 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 49=259— 79 (73 : 1 )=1 80. 

448—1 80=268 + 1 =269. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=30&— 13 /; col. =295. 
505—1 67=338—30 (74 :2)=308. 508—308=200 + 

1=201 + 16^ & h col. =217. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 50 (74:2)=239. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 50 (76:1)=258. 508 

—258=250 + 1=251. 
505—167=338—50 (76:1)=288— 50 (74:2)=238. 508 

-238=270+1=271. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 22 

b & h col. =217. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 145 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 50 (76:1)=258— 22 

b Hi h col. =236. 



Word. 

258 
259 


Page and 
Column. 

75:2 

75:2 


taken 
prisoner 


150 


76:1 


or 


270 


75:2 


slaine> 


223 

(264) 


75:2 

75:2 


in 
the 


216 


75:3 


greatest 


234 


75:2 


fear 


273 
= 161 

(143) 
288 
193 


75:2 of 
76:1 being 
76:1 apprehended, 
75:2 turned 
76:1 and 


237 
170 
171 
193 


75:2 

75:2 
75:2 
75:2 


fled 
away 
from 

the 


250 
66 

'=461 


75:2 
76:2 

76:2 


field, 
into 
the 


269 
295 


76:2 
76:1 


shadows, 
with 


217 
239 


75:2 
75:2 


speed 
swifter 


251 


75:2 


than 


S 
271 


75:2 


the 


217 
= 113 


75:2 
76-1 


speed 
of 



236 



75:2 arrows. 



Here is another sentence of thirty-four words, growing out of 505 — 167=338; 
every word found on 75:2 or 76:1. Observe how those remarkable words taken — 
prisoner — fear — slaine — apprehended — fled — speed — swifter — arrows — all come 
out together, at the summons of the same root-number, cohering arithmetically 
with absolute precision; and found — not scattered over a hundred pages, or ten 
pages — but compacted together in two columns of 1,003 words! If this stood 



SHAKSPERE CARRIED TO PRISON. 749 

alone it should settle the question of the existence of a Cipher in the Shakespeare 
Plays; — but it is only one of hundreds of other sentences already given, or yet to 
come. Observe how those typical words speed — swifter — thati — speed — arrozvs 
— all come out of the same number and the same modifications. Speed is 338 less 
30 up the column plus b & h; swifter is 338 less 50 down the column; than is 338 less 
50 up the column; .r/<ir(/(the same word) is 33S less 50 down the column, ///^j- h & 
h; arrotus is 338 less 30 down the column, pins b & li. See how the same word 
speed is so adjusted as to be 338 less 30 itp the column and 338 less 50 down the 
column! 

But if further evidence is needed to satisfy the incredulous reader of the 
presence of the most careful design and accurate adjustment of the words of the 
text to the columns, and parts of columns, of the Folio, let me bring together three 
parallel parts of the same story, existing far apart in the narrative, it is true, but 
joined here by textual contiguity. We will see that some of the same words are 
used thrice oz'er to tell, first of the flight of the actors on hearing that they were 
likely to be arrested for treason; secondly, the flight of Henslow, the theater man- 
ager, with his hoarded wealth; and thirdly, the story of the flight of the young men 
of Stratford, when interrupted by Sir Thomas Lucy and his followers in the work 
of the destruction of his fish-pond. Now a colossal prejudice might insist that the 
story I have just given could come about by accident, — so as to precisely fit to 
that fragment of a scene at the bottom of 76:1, and that other fragment of a scene 
on 74:2, marshaled by the key-note, 505 — 167^338; but I shall now proceed to 
show that the text of the Folio has been so arranged and exquisitely manipulated, 
that these very same words are made to match to the subdivisions of another 
column, 75:1, by the key-note of two other and totally different Cipher numbers, 
to-wit: 505 and 513; making a sort of treble-barreled miracle, so extraordinary and 
incomprehensible, that I think the Shakspereolators will have to conclude that if 
there is not a Cipher in these Plays there ought to have been one. 

To get the three narratives side by side, into the narrow compass of a page, I 
shall have to abbreviate the explanatory signs and figures; but I have already given 
so many instances of these that I think the reader will understand what is meant 
without them. I print in italic type those words which are duplicated in two or three 
columns. To save space I do not give the column and page before each word, 
because they are all found on 75:2, or 76:1, or 74:1. I therefore insert simply the 
figures 5, 6 or 4 before the words — 5 meaning 75:2, and 6, 76:1, and 4, 74:1. I 
place the root-numbers which work out the story at the top of each column. The 
15 /) & h means, of course, the 15 bracketed and hyphenated words in 193 or 254, 
the upper and lower subdivisions of 75:1. Where other figures are added or 
deducted they refer to the bracketed and hyphenated words above or below the 
Cipher word, as the case may be, in the same column. Where only the bracketed 
words or the hyphenated words are counted by themselves I indicate it by /' or //. 

I do not pretend to give the words of these sentences, at this time, in their 
exact order, but simply to show how the same 'words are brought out, from different 
starting-points, by differettt root-numbers ; a result which would only be possible 
through the most careful double and triple pre-arrangement and adjustment of the 
root-numbers to the number of words in the text, and the number of bracketed 
and hyphenated words in the columns, creating thereby a marvelous parallelism, 
which it seems to me utterly excludes the thought that the results obtained have 
occurred bv chance. 



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d 



SHAKSPERE CARRIED TO PRISON. 751 

Here the reader will perceive that the sa7ne words: meti — turned — hacks — 
fled — szi'ifter — /hn>i — arrows — greatest — fear, are used, some of them in two^ 
some of them in three separate narratives, descriptive of three different flights; 
mingled of course with words, in each instance, which do not occur in the others. 
But this is not all. Observe how carefully the hyphens and brackets in column 
75:2 are adjusted to the necessities of the Cipher. For instance, the root-number 
505 — 30=475— 254 gives us 221; and this carried down the column gives us men; 
and up the column it brings us to 288, turned; but, if we count in the two hyphen- 
ated words, it gives us hacks — " turned their backs." On the other hand, 513 — 
30=483 — 193 gives us 290; it will be noticed that we have here the same 30; and 
the 193, the upper subdivision of 75:1, takes the place of 254, the lower subdi- 
vision of the same. Now if we carry this 290 dortni the column it brings us to the 
same word, backs, which we have just obtained by going up the column with 221. 
But there are also two hyphenated words above 290 as well as below it, or four in 
all in the column, exclusive of the bracketed words; and if we count these in, as 
we did before with 221, the count falls again on turned — "turned their backs.'" 
Now, if there had been five hyphenated words in that column this could not have 
been accomplished; or if three of the four hyphens had been above 288 and 290 the 
count' would also have failed. 

If Francis Bacon did not put a Cipher in this play, what Puck — what Robirt 
Goodfellow — what playful genius was it, — come out of chaos, — that brought 
forth all this regularity } 

Now it may be objected that Bacon would not have used the comparison of 
great speed to a flight of arrows twice; but observe the difference: 505 gives us 
fled . . . swifter than arrows fly toward their aim; while 338 gives us fled a^vay 
ivith speed swifter tlia)i the speed of the arrows. And it must be remembered that, 
although the words for these two comparisons are found in the same column, the 
stories spring from different roots, and probably stand hundreds of pages apart in 
the Cipher narrative itself. And then, as we find Bacon constrained, by the neces- 
sities of the Cipher, to depart in the text of the Plays in many instances from both 
grammar and sense, as in: 

Or what hath this bold enterprise bring forth ? 

76:1; or: "Therefore, sirra, with a new wound in your thigh come you along \sic'\ 
me," 72:2; or: 

Hold up they head, vile Scot, 

72:1; or: " This earth that bears the [.r?V] dead," 72:2, etc.: so, without doubt, he 
was compelled, in such a complicated piece of work as the Cipher, to use the 
same words, — for instance, s'udfter than arrows, — twice, or oftener, when it was 
arithmetically easier to use them than to avoid using them. And what an infinite 
skill does it imply, that he had so adapted the length and breadth of the different 
parts of the Cipher narrative to each other, that the story of the three flights given 
above could be brought around so as to fit into column 2 of page 75, and avoid the 
necessity of recurring, in different other pages and columns, to the same words — 
turned — hacks — fled — s7vifter — arroTos, etc.! And backs, .he it observed, does 
not occur again anywhere else in either of these two plays. And the word backs is 
found only six times in all the Historical Plays, and in every instance we find the 
word turn, or turned, or turning, in the same act, and, in four cases out of the six, 
in the same scene with backs. And arrows is found but nine times in all the Shake- 
speare Plays. 

But it may be thought by some that any numbers would lead to these same 



752 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

words. Let the reader experiment. The numbers 523 and 516 will produce some 
of them, as I shall show hereafter; but 523 and 516 are Cipher numbers. Let us 
take, however, a number not a Cipher number — for instance, 500 — and put it 
through the same changes as the above; and it will yield us such incoherent words 
as zoas — lead — with — from — with — King — %vell — laboting — a)tl — gan — /;/ — 
thfee, etc. I do not think that any other numbers but the Cipher numbers can be 
made to evolve even portions of any of the significant sentences found in this 
three-fold example. 

Let me give one more extraordinary proof of this exquisite adjustment of the 
text to the Cipher; and I again place it in parallel columns that it may the more 
clearly strike the eye of the reader. We have the same words, fear of hcing appre- 
hended, used in two different portions of the narrative. Now the combination, 
heiiig apprehended, is one not likely to occur by chance; apprehended is found but nine 
times in all the Plays ! And but this one time in this play. And being, (signifying 
condition), but seven times in all the Plays ! And only this once in this play. The 
reader will now see how these rare words come together twice, at the summons of 
two different Cipher numbers: 

513. 505—167=338. 

513 513 483 338 288 

193 30 193 50(74:2) 145 

320 483 290 288 143 

513—449=34. 34 75:2 Fear 508—288=220+ 

290— 5//col.= 285 76:1 of 1=221 + 13/^=234 75:2 Fear 

448-290=158+ 288—50=238. 

508— 238+2/'=273 75:2 of 

1=159+2 /.= 161 76:1 being ^^_^^^^^^^^^ 

448—320=128+ 1=161. 161 76:1 being; 

1=139 + 11/,= (143) 76:1 apprehended. 288— 145 (76:)=(143) 76:1 apprehended. 

Here we start from the initial word of scene 2 of 76:1 of the Folio, and 513 
brings us to fear; the same less 193 (75:1) and less 50 (76:1) carried down the same 
column gives us of; the same up the column, plus the hyphens, gives us being; and 
the same 513 less 193, up the same column, gives us apprehended. The formula of 
this last word cannot be clearly stated in figures, but actual count will satisfy the 
reader that apprehended is the 320th word plus the brackets, counting up from 448. 

Again, 505 — 167=338; 338 less 50 (74:2) gives us 288=/t'«;v this 288 carried 
through the fragment at the bottom of 76:1 and up the next column gives us of; 
and 288, the same number, up the column (76:1) gives us being; and the same 
number, 288, carried through the adjoining subdivision (145, 76:2) gives us 1..13; 
and actual count will demonstrate that apprehended is the 143d word down the 
column, not counting in the bracketed and hyphenated words above it. 

But to resume our narrative: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505— 167=338— 50=288— 248=40+ 193=233+ /i= (233) 75:1 My 
505— 167=338— 49 (76:1)=289— 248=41. 194+ 

41=23i5_/;=235. (235) 75:1 Lord, 

505— 167=338— 49=289— 218 (74:2)=71. 71 74:1 who 

505— 167=338— 219(74:2)=! 19. 119 75:1 had, 



SHAKSPERE CARRIED TO PRISON, 



753 



505—167=338—50 (74':2)=2S8— 49=239— 50 (74:2)= 
505—167=338—50=288—50=238—50=188— 
\%b& h col.=176. 

505— 167^S38— 50=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 50=188. 
505— 167=338— 50=308— 50=258— 90 (73:1)=168. 

508—1 68=340 + 1 =341 . 
505—167=338—30=308—193=115—15 b & 7^=100. 

248— 100=148+1=149+<^=160. 

505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 193 

=45. 447—45=402+1=403+3 i> col =406. 
505—167=338—49=289—248=41—24 b & h=Yl. 
505—167=338-30=308—198=110; 83+1=84 

+3 b col. 87. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 1 98=1 10. 
505— 1 67=338 —30=308—49=259- 248=1 1 + 193= 

204—2 /?=202. 
505—167=338—49=289—248=41—22 b & /^=19. 

284—19=265+1=266. 
505—167=338—30=308—193=115. 248—115= 

133+1=134 + 16 /; & h col. 
505—167=338—49 (76:1)=289— 248=41— 24 /^ & h 

(248)=17. 447—15=432+1=433. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 248=40— 1 h col.= 
505—167=338—49=289—248=41—22 b & /i=19. 

447—19=428+1=429. 
505—167=338—30 (74:2)=308— 193=115— 15 /; & // 

=100. 248—100=148 + 1=149. 

It seems that the rioters had also kindled a fire to light their destructive work. 
For we have: 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




289 


75:2 


in 


176 


74:1 


the 


188 


74:1 


mean 


341 


76:1 


time, 


(160) 


74:2 


followed 
the 


406 


75:1 


others, 


17 


75-1 


came 


87 


75:1 


up. 


110 


75:1 


He 


202 


75:1 


tells 


266 


74:1 


them 


150 


74:2 


to 


433 


75:1 


make 


38 


75:1 


him 


429 


75:1 


a 


149 


74:2 


prisoner. 



15 



505— 167=333- 50=288— 248=40— 24^& /2 (248)= 

16—1 //=15. 
505—167=338—30=308—198=110. 284—110= 

174+5=175. 

505—167=338—50=288—198=90—22— b (198)=6l 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—90=168—1 

k col. =167. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 198=110— 9 <^& /;=101. 
505—167=338—50 ^74:2)=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 50 

(74:2)=189— 12 b&k col. =177. 
505— 167=338— 50=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 298=40. 

284—40=244+1=245. 
505—167=338—50=288—198=90—24 b & // (193)=66. 66 
505—167=338—30=308—198=110. 284—110=174 

+ 1=175 + 6 /^col.=181. 
505—167=338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 50 

(74:2)=188+193=381— 8 /^=373 
505—167=338—30=308—198=110+194=304— 

3^ col. =301. 



75:1 



After 



175 


74:1 


quenching- 


68 


75:2 


the 


167 


75:2 


fire, 


101 


75:1 


the 


177 


74:1 


flames 


245 


74:1 


of 


66 


75:2 


which • 


181 


74:1 


even 


373 


75:1 


yet 


301 


75:1 


burned. 



754 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




261 


76:1 


my 


262 


76:1 


Lord 



The word qiieiichiiig only occurs one other time in all the thousand pages of 
the Plays; and here it coheres arithmetically \wnhjfc7wc, /ire and burned; and this 
is the only time when y/i^wt' occurs in these two plays of ist Siwd. 2d He)iry IV.; and 
this is the only occasion when burned is found in 2d Henry IV.; and it occurs but 
once in ist Henry IV. 

And here the narrative changes slightly its root-number; heretofore we have 
elaborated this part of the story by 505 — 167=338: but in that 167 (74:2) there are 
twenty-one bracketed words and one hyphenated word; if we count these in, then 
the 167 becomes 189; and 189 deducted from the root-number, 505, leaves, not 338, 
but 316. Hence, for a long narrative, hereafter, 316 becomes the root-number. We 
have seen a similar change take place on page 718, ante, where a whole chapter 
grows out of 516 — 167=349 — 22 b & h (i67)=327. 

We read: ' 



50i5_l 67=338— 22 /; & //=316— 50=266— 5 //=261. 
505—167=338—22/. & //=316— 49=267— 5 /^=262. 
505—167=338—22 b & //=316— 193 (75:1)=123. 498 

—133=375+1=376. 
505—167=338—22^ & 7^=316-193=123. 457—123 

=334+1=335. 
505—167=338—22 /; & /;=316— 193=123— 15 h & //= 

108—5 b & // col. =103. 
505—167=338—22 /- & //=316— 50 (74:2)=266— 49 

(76:1)=217— 145=72. 
505—167=338—22 b & //=316— 193=128. 449= 

123=326+1=327. 
505—167=338—22 b & 7^=316— 193=123— 15/' & /i= 

108—50 (76:1)=58. 
505—167=338—22^ & 7^=316— 50=266— 13 /'=253. 
505—167=338—22 /'& 7^=316—193=123. 
505—167=338—22 b& 7^=316—50=266. 
505—167=338—22 b & 7/=316— 49 (76:1)=267. 
505— 1 67=338— 22 b & 7/=31 6— 50=266. 603—266 

=337+ l=g 



379 



335 



76:1 



76:2 



tells 



them 



103 


76:1 


to 


72 


76:1 


make 


327 


76:1 


a 


58 


76:2 


litter 


253 


75:1 


and 


123 


76:1 


lift 


266 


76:1 


the 


267 


73:1 


corpse 



338 



76:2 



up. 



The exquisite art of the work is shown in that word biUer. We have already 
(505 — 448=57) used the 57th word, /ler, (7/f';- Grace is furious, etc.); here we use the 
58th word, bitter; and after a while we shall find the word de7-whel»ied, the 55th word, 
used to describe Bacon's feelings when he heard the dreadful news that Shakspere 
was to be arrested and put to the torture to make him disclose the author of the 
Plays. Now the Cipher story brought the words d'erzvhelmed — her — litter into jux- 
taposition. How was Bacon to use these words in the external play? There- 
upon, his fertile mind invented that grotesque image, wherein the corpulent Fal- 
staff says to his diminutive page: 

I do here walk before thee, like a sow that hath oer'cvlielnicd ^\ /ler litter hut 
one. 

It will be found that we owe many of the finest gems of thought in the Plays 
to the dire necessities of the great cryptologist, who, driven to straits by the Cipher, 
fell back on the vast resources of his crowded mind, and invented sentences that 
would bring the patch-work of words before him into coherent order. Take that 
beautiful expression: 



SHAKSPEKE CARRIED TO PRISON. 755 

O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird, 
Which ever, in the haunch of winter, sings 
The lifting up of day.' 

It will be found that summer, haunch, winter, sings and lifting are all Cipher 
words, the tail ends of various stories, and the genius of the poet linked them to- 
gether in this exquisite fashion. There was, to the ordinary mind, no connection 
between haunch, a haunch of venison, and summer, 'winter and sings, but in an 
instant the poet, with a touch, converted the haunch into the hindmost part of the 
winter. It is no wonder that Bacon said of himself that he found he had "a 
nimble and fertile mind." 

' 2d Henry IV., iv, 2. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE YOUTHFUL SHAKSPERE DESCRIBED. 



We will draw the curtain and show you the picture. 

T^velfth Night, i\s. 

WHEN "my Lord" (as the peasants called him) — Sir 
Thomas — captured one of the marauders and destroyers of 
his property, he was of course curious to know who it was. And 
so by the same root-number (playing between the end of scene 
second, 76:1, and the subdivisions of 75:1) we find the following 
words coming out: 



505— 1 67=338— 50=288— 1 93 (75 : 1 )=95. 

505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 28 (73 : 1 )=230- 

145=85. 448—85=363+1=364. 
505—167=338—30=308—49=259—90=169—145= 

24. 448—24=424+1=425. 
505— 167=338— 30=308— 50=258-63 (73:1)=195- 

10 ^=185. 
505—167=338—50=288—193=95. 447—95=352 

+ 1=353+3 /> col. =356. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 28 (73 : 1 )=230- 

145=85. 498— 85=413 + 1=414. 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 79=1 79—49= 

130. 508—130=378+1=379+4/; & /: col.= 
505— 167=338-30=308— 49=259— 79(73 : 1)=180- 

4 (^ col. =176. 

And when the blood was scraped away from the face of the wounded man, he 
recognized " William Shagspere, one thone partie." Little did Sir Thomas think, 
as he gazed upon him, that the poor wotinded wretch was to be, for centuries, the 
subject of the world's adoration, as the greatest, profoundest, most brilliant and 
most philosophical of mankind. The whole thing makes history a mockery. It 
is enough, in itself, to cast a doubt upon all the established opinions of the world. 

I would note the fact that the word scraped occurs in but two other places in 
all the Plays I 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




95 


75:1 


He 


364 


76:1 


scraped 


425 


76:1 


the 


185 


74:1 


blood 


356 


75:1 


away 


414 


76:1 


from 


383 


75:2 


his 


176 


76:1 


face. 



505—167=338—30=308—49=259—90=169. 169 

505— 167=338— 30=308— 50=258— 63 (73:1)=195— 

50=145—50=95. 95 

756 



75:1 



He 



75:2 remembered 



THE YOUTHFUL SHAKSPERE DESCRIBED. 



757 



Word. 

505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 90=1 68—145= 23 
505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 90=1 68. 458— 

168=2904-1=291+8 (J & // col. =299. 299 

505— 1 67=338— 30=308— 50=258— 63 (73:1 )=1 95— 

50=145. 508— 145=363+ 1=364+3-^ col. = 367 

505—167=338—30=308—50=258—90=168. 508— 

168=340+1=341+6 b col =347. 347 

505— 167=338— 30=308— 50=258— 28 (73:1)=230— 

145=85. 193-85=108+l=109+6/v& //=115. 115 
505—167=338—30=308—50=258—90=168. 168 

505—167=338—50=288—193=95. 248—95=153+ 

1 // col. =155. 155 

505—167=338—30=308—49=259—90=169—145= 

24— 3/'(145)=21. 21 

505— 167=338— 30=308^50=258— 28 (73:1W230— 

145=85. 85 

505—1 67=338—30=808—50=258—248=10. 10 

505— 167=338— 50=288— 193=95— 50 (76:1)=45. 

193—45=148 + 1=149. 149 



Page and 
Column. 

77:1 



r6:2 



75:2 

75:1 
76:1 

74:2 

77:1 

77:1 
74:1 



the 

rascally j 
knave \ 

well; 

there 

was 
not 

a 

worse 

in 

the 



75:1 barony. 



And here follows the description of the youthful Shakspere, as he appeared 
on his native heath: — one of the half-civilized boys of " the bookless neighbor- 
hood" of Stratford; the very individual referred to in the traditions of beer-drink- 
ing, poaching and rioting which have come down to us. 

To save work for the printers I will hereafter, instead of printing 505 — 167= 
338, in each line, content myself with commencing each line with 33S. 



338—30 (74:2)=308— 145=163— 3 b (145)=160. 
338—30=308—146=162. 457—162=295+1=296. 
338—30=308—146=162—3 b (146)=159. 457—159 

=298+1=299. 
338—30=308—145=163. 

338— 30=308— 146=162— 9 h&h col.=153. 
388—30=308—145=163—5 b & // col. =148. 
338—30=308—50=258—50 (76:1)=208. 457—208 

=249 + 1=250. 
338—163=175. 
338—49 (76:1)=289— 146=143— 3 b (146)=140. 457 

—140=317+1=318. 
338—30=308—49=259. 

338—29 (74:2,)=309. 456—309=148+1=149. 
338—50=288—146=192—3 /' (146)=189— 4 b col.= 
338—49=289—146=193—3 b (146)=190— 4 b col.= 
338—49 (76:2)=289— 146=143— 1 h col.=142. 
338—49 (76 :2)=289— 146=143. 
338—49 (76:2)=289— 161=128+457=585— 3 b col.= 
338—193=145—5 /' & h col.=140. 
338—193=145—4/' col. =141. 



160 


77:1 


The 


296 


76:2 


horson 


299 


76:2 


knave 


163 


76:1 


was, 
at 


153 


76:1 


this 


148 


76:1 


time, 


250 


76:2 


about 


175 


78:2 


twenty; 


318 


76:2 


but 


359 


76:1 


his 


149 


76:2 


beard 


185 


76:2 


is 


186 


76:2 


not 


142 


76:2 


yet 


143 


76:2 


fledged; 


582 


76:2 


there 


140 


76:2 


is 


141 


76:2 


not 



758 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



338—50 (74:2)=388— 146=142. 

338—30=308—145=163. 457—163=294+ 1=295. 

338—145 (7G:2)=193— 3 b (146)=190— 2 // col.=188. 

338—29 (74:2)=309. 

338—30=308—145=163. 

338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1 )=338— 146=142 

—3 /. (146)=139. 
338—49 (76:1)=289— 146=143. 577—143=434+1 

=435+17 (^& //=452. 
338—30=308—50=258—15 b &i h col.=243. 
338—193=145. 457—145=312+1=313. 
338—30=308—49=259. 603—259=344+1=345+ 

2 h col. =347. 
338—30=308—146=162—3 b (146)=159— 4 b col.= 
338— 30=308— 145=163— 3 ^(145)=1 60—4 h col.= 
338—30=308—49=259. 

338—30=308—49=259—145=114—3 b col.=lll. 
338—50=288—50 (76:1)=238. 
338—50=288—162 (78:1)=126. 
338—50=288—50 (76:1)=238— 7 b col. =231. 
338—49 (76:1)=289— 161=128. 610—128=482+1= 
338—30=308—49=259—3 // col. =256. 

338—49 (76:1)=289— 162=127— 32 (79:1)=95 

—11 b col. =84. 
338—50=288—162 (78:1)=126— 58 (80:1)=66. 
338—162=176—49 (76:1)=127. 603—127=476+1= 

477+3 b col.=480 
338—162=176—49 (76:1)=127. 458+127=585. 
338—50 (74:2)=288. 603—288=315 + 1=316. 
338—49 (76:1)=289. 603—289=314+1=315+2 h= 
338—50 (74:2)=288. 603—288=315 + 1=316 + 

3 7^=318. 

338—30=308—145=163. 457—163=294+1=295. 
338—30=308—162=146—50=96—1 // col. =95. 
338—50=288—57 (79:1)=231. 
338—30=308—162=146. 458—146=312+1=313+ 

7 /; & //=320. 
338—50 (74:2)=288— 49 (76:1)=239. 
338—49 (76:1)=289. 603—289=314+1=315+ 

10 b & 7^=325. 
338—50=288. 

338—145=193. 577—193=384+1=385. 
338—30=308—49=259—4 b col. =255. 
338—30=308—50 (76:1)=258. 

338—50=288—162 (78:1)=126. 498—126=372+1= 
338—145=193—161=32—1 7^=31. 
338—145=193—3 b (145)=190. 
338—304 (78 : 1 )=34. 462—34=428 + 1 =429 . 
338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 7-5' & 7/ col. =232. 
338—49=289—162=127—50=77. 603—77=526+1= 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




142 


76:2 


yet 


295 


76:2 


a 


188 


76:2 


haire 


309 


76:2 


on 


163 


76:2 


his 



139 



76:2 



chin; 



452 


77:1 


it 


243 


76:1 


is 


313 


76:2 


smooth 


347 


76:2 


as 


155 


76:2 


my 


156 


76:3 


hand. 


259 


76:2 


He 


111 


76:1 


was 


238 


76:2 


almost 


126 


78:2 


naked; 


331 


78:1 


without 


483 


77:2 


shirts, 


356 


76:2 


cloak 


84 


78:2 


or 


66 


80:2 


stockings. 


480 


76:2 


He 


585 


76:2 


doth 


316 


76:2 


weare 


317 


76:2 


nothing 


318 


76:2 


but 


295 


76:2 


a 


95 


76:2 


cap; 


231 


76:2 


his 


330 


76:2 


shoes 


339 


76:2 


out 


325 


76:2 


at 


388 


76:2 


the 


385 


77:1 


heels, 


355 


76:2 


short 


358 


76:2 


slops, 


373 


76:1 


and 


31 


78:2 


a 


190 


76:2 


smock 


429 


78:2 


on 


232 


76:2 


his 


= 527 


76:2 


back, 



THE YOUTHFUL SHAKSPERE DESCRIBED. 



759 



338—145=193—3 b {145)=190— 3 h col.=187. 
338—317 {79:1)=21. 

338—49 (76:1)=289— 162=127+31 (79:1)=158.. 
338—50=388—162=126—32=94—3 h col.=91. 
338—50=288—162=126—58 (80:1)=66. 523—66 

457+1=458. 
338-162 (78:1)=176— 32 (79:1)=144. 462- 

318 + 1=319+2/^=321. 
338—145=193—3/' (145)=190— 1/> col.=189 
338—145=193—3 / (145)=190. 577—190=38 
338—50 (74:2)=288— 49 (76:1)=239— 145=94. 

—94=483+1=484. 
338—50 (74.2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 145=93, 

—93=484+1=485. 
338—30=308—49 (76:1)=259. 
338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 163=75- 

(79:1)=43. 462—43=419 + 1=420. 
338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76:1)=238— 163=75- 

(79:1)=48. 
838—162=176—32=144. 468—144=324+1= 

+ 1 //col.= 
338—30=308—145=163—5 / & h col.=158. 

338—50 (74.2)=288— 49 {76:1)=239— 145=94. 

94=483+1= 484+5 b & //=389. 
338—50 (74:2)=288— 50 (76: 1)=238— 145=93. 

—93=384+1=385+5 b & /^=390. 



l^ord. 


Page and 

Column. 




187 


76:1 


out 


21 


79:2 


at 


158 


79:1 


elbow, 


91 


78:2 


and 



458 



80:2 



not 



*±^= 


321 


78:2 


over 




(189) 


77:1 


clean. 


*7+l= 


388 


77:1 


The 


577 










484 


77:1 


truth 


577 










485 


77:1 


is, 




259 


76:2 


he 


-32 










420 


78:2 


lived, 


-32 










43 


78:2 


at 


=325 










320 


78:1 


this 




158 


77:1 


time, 
in 


577— 










389 


77:1 


great 


577 










390 


77:1 


infamy, 



Here we have, brought out by the same root-number (33S), a whole wardrobe: 
caj> ■ — shirts — cloak — stockings — shoes — smock; together with out — at — heels — 
01! — back — out — at — elbo7vs; and also horson — knave — weave — nothing — 
almost — naked. Why — if this is the work of chance — did not some of these words, 
descriptive of clothing, come out by the other root-numbers, or by this same root- 
number, when applied to other pages ? • 

Smock occurs but once in this play and but six other times in all the Plays; 
elbow is found but once in this act and but twice in this play; shiiis occurs but 
this once in this act; slops is found only this one time in this play, and /«/ ^«^ 
other time in all the Plays; this is the only time stockings is found in the play, and 
it occurs but eight times besides in all the Plays; this is the only time shoes is found 
in this play; and this is the only time cap occurs in this act; and this is the only time 
infamy is found in this play. Can any one believe that all these rare words came 
together, in so small a compass, by chance; and that, by another chance, they were 
each of them made the ssSth word from some one of a few clearly defined points of 
departure in counting? 

Observe those words almost naked. Each is derived from 338; nay, each is 
derived from 338 minus 50^288. We commence with 288 at the end of scene 2 
and go forward to the next column, and we have almost; we take 288 again, and 
commence at the end of the next scene and go forward again to the next column, 
and we have naked ! This alone would be curious; but taken in connection with all 
the other words in this sentence, which cohere arithmetically and in sense and 



760 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

meaning, with almost naked — no shirts or stockings — dotli wear nothing hut a cap, 
and shoes out at the heels, and a smock out at the elbozv, not over clean, it amounts to a 
demonstration. 

The word j-A'/j signified breeches. We have in the Plays: " A German, from 
the waist downward all slops." ^ We also find, in the text under consideration, 
Falstaff speaking of "the satin for my short cloak and slops." The word smock 
signified a rough blouse, such as is worn by peasants and laborers.'^ In the text 
the word smock is disguised in smack, which was pronounced smock in that age. 

Some explanation of the figures used as modifiers in the Cipher-work are 
necessary. We are advancing, as Bacon would say, "into the bowels of the" 
play. 

Page 77 is solid; — that is to say, there is no break in it by stage directions or 
new scenes. The first column of page 78 contains two fragments; one of 162 
words, being the end of scene third; the other the first part of Sccrtia Quarta, con- 
taining 306 words, with 17 bracketed words and 3 hyphenated words besides. If 
we count from the end word of scene third upward, exclusive of that word, as we 
have done in other instances, we have 161 words; if we count from the beginning 
of scene fourth we have 162 words. In this fragment the words, " th'other," on 
the 14th line, are counted as one word — " t'other." From the end word of scene 
third downward there are 306 words; from the first word of scene fourth downward 
there are 305 words. The next column of page 78 is unbroken. When we reach 
the next column (79:1; we have a complicated state of things. The column is 
broken into four fragments. The first of 31 words, with 5 words in brackets, con- 
stitutes the end of scene fourth. Then we enter act second. The first break is 
caused by the stage direction. Enter Falstaffe and Bardolfe, and ends with the 
317th word from the top of the column; being the 286th word from the end of the 
last act, or 285 from the beginning of act second, or 284, excluding the first and 
last word. This gives us the modifier 286 or 285, or 284. And to the bottom of 
the column there are igg or 200 words. 

The next break in the text is caused by the stage direction. Enter Ch. Justice, 
ending with the 461st word, and containing 143 or 144 words, accordingly as 
we count from the beginning of that subdivision or the end of the preceding 
one; and the fourth fragment runs from the 461st word to the end of the column, 
and contains 57 or 58 words. The second column of page 79 is broken by the 
stage direction, Enter M. Gower. The first contains 533 words; the second con- 
tains 64 or 65 words; and there are 534 words from the first word of the second 
subdivision, inclusive, to the top of the column. This page gives us therefore these 
modifiers: 

31—32; —317— 318; — 284 — 285— 2S6; —199—200; —461— 462;— 143— 144; — 
57— 5S; — 533—534; —64—65. 

And when we turn to the next column (78:1) the remainder of the scene, scene 
I, act 2, gives us 338 words, with 12. b & ^ h words additional; and the fragment of 
scene second, act 2 (78:1), gives us 57 or 58 words, as we count from the beginnin~ 
of scene second or the end of scene first. And the next column gives us two frag- 
ments, yielding 461-2 and 61-2. 

And here I would call the attention of the reader to the curious manner in 
which the stage directions are packed into the corners of lines on page 79, as 
compared with column i of page 75, where the words. Enter Morto7i, are given 
about half an inch space; or on page 64, where one stage direction is assigned 

> Muck Ado about Nothing, ii, 2. 

^ See Webster^ s Dictionary, " .Sniock^'' and ^''Smock-frock" 



THE YOUTHFUL SHAKSPERE DESCRIBED. 76 1 

three-quarters of an inch space; or page 62, where three stage directions have 
nearly an inch and a half space, while three others, on this page, 79, have 
not even a separate line given them. The crowding of matter on some 
pages, as compared with others, is also shown by contrasting the small 
space allowed for the title of Actus Sccniidns, Sciena Prima, on 79:1, with 
the heading, not of an act, but a scene, on the next column (80:1). In the one 
case the space from spoken word to spoken word is five-eighths of an inch, in the 
other it is an inch and one-sixteenth. And that this is not accidental is shown 
also in the abbreviations used on page 79: Chief is printed Ch.; remembered is 
printed remebred; a hundred is printed a 100; cf is constantly used for ti/id; Af. is 
used repeatedly ior Master; Mistress is printed Mist.; thou is repeatedly printed " yl " 
twenty shillings is printed 20 s. And observe how Lombard street and silk man 
(79:1. 29th line) are run together into one word each, where anywhere else 
we should at least have had a hyphen between their parts. And that these things 
were deliberately done is shown in the case of the word i-emembered (j():i, 16 lines 
from end); if it had been simply printed remebred we might suppose it was a typo- 
graphical error, but the printer was particulai to put the sign ~ over the e to show 
that there had been an elision of part of the word. Now it took just as long to put 
in that mark as it would have taken to insert the w and the additional e between 
the b and e. (Did the ordinary fonts of type of that age use this elision sign? Or 
were these types made to order ?) 

A still more striking fact is, that while by uniform custom each speaker in the 
text of the Plays is allowed his line to himself, yet in two instances, on page 79, 
the words uttered by an interlocutor are crowded in as part of the line belonging 10 
another speaker. Thus we have (79:1, 12th line from end) this line: 

Falst. Keep them off, Bardolfe. Fang. A rescue, a rescue. 
And again (79:2, 3d line): 

I am a poor widow of Eastcheap and he is arre- 
sted at my suit. Ch. Just. For what summe ? 

Here v/e see that the printer has not even room to print in full the w^rds Chief 
Justice, but condensed them into Ch. Just. 

Now every printer will tell you that unless there had been some special and 
emphatic order to crowd the text in this extraordinary fashion, it would not have 
been done; but a dozen lines or more of page 79 would have been run over onto page 
80, where, as we have seen, there is plenty of room for them. Compare 79:1 or 79:2 
with 80:1. There are in So:i no abbreviations in spelling; no contractions, with 
the single exception of one J\F for Master; there is no d"-" for and; no using of figures . 
for words, although we have " fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse;" no running 
of the speeches of two characters together in one line. And there are 631 words on 
79:2 and only 403 words on So;i ! And yet each is a column, the one following the 
other. Why should one column contain 22S words more than the other, or one- 
third more words than the other ? There is on page 79 matter enough to constitute 
two pages and a half, printed as column i of page 80 or as column i of page 62 
is printed. 

But the exigencies of the Cipher required that column 79:2 should contain 228 
words more than column 80:1; and the carrying of a single word over from the one 
to the other would have destroyed the Cipher on both pages; and hence all this 
packing and crowding of matter, which one cannot fail to observe by simply glarc- 
ing at the page, as given herewith in facsimile. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER AND HIS ADVICE. 

The curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of a man, the heart of 
a monster. IVinter's Taie, zi\s- 



505—167=338. 



Page and 
Word. Column. 



338—30=308—50=358—49=209. 603—209=394+1=395 76:2 The 

338—30=308—49=259. 498—259=239+1=240. 240 76;1 Bishop 

338—30=308—50=258—49=209—148=63. 63 77:1 said. 

Who was the Bishop? It was his Lordship Sir John Babington, Bishop of 
Worcester — " the right reverend father in God, Lord John, Bushop of Worcester " — 
of the diocese in which Stratford was situated, — for whose protection was executed 
that famous bond, dated November 28, 1582, to enable "William Shagspere, one 
thone partie, and Anne Hathwey of Stratford, in the dioces of Worcester, maiden," 
to marry with " once asking of the bannes of matrimony between them." ' We 
know that the Bishop belonged to the Cecil faction, and when Essex was arrested 
for treason, and he thought he could do so safely, he took advantage of the oppor- 
tunity to attack him. Hepworth Dixon says: 

Babington, Bishop of Worcester, glances at him [Essex] cautiously in a court 
sermon; but when sent for by the angry Queen he denies that he pointed to the 
Earl.'^ 

The Bishop belonged to the Cecil faction; he was Sir Robert's superserviceable 
friend, and the very man, of all others, to tell him all about Shakspere's youth; and 
we will see hereafter that ' ' Anne Hathwey " had dragged the future play-actor before 
"Sir John, as Bishop of the diocese; and that Sir John had compelled Shakspere to 
marry her. So the Bishop knew all about him. And herein we find an explana- 
tion of the bond just referred to; and the hurried marriage; and the baptism tread- 
ing fast upon the heels of the bridal. 

And it was the Bishop of Worcester who gave Cecil the description of Shak- 
spere's appearance in his youthful days which we copied into the last chapter. 

And there is a great deal in the Cipher story about the Bishop of Worcester. 
When Cecil became suspicious of the Plays, he gave Sir John the plays of Richard 
II. and Measure for Measure to examine, or, as Bacon was wont to say, to anato- 
mize — {The Anatomy of Wit, The Auatoitiy of Melancholy, eic.) The Bishop found 

1 Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, p. 569. * Personal History of Lord Bacon, p. 123. 

762 



THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER A A'D HIS ADVICE. 763 

the same strain of infidelity in Measure for Measure which, centuries afterwards, 
shocked the piety of Dr. Johnson; and he then told Cecil the story of Shakspere's 
life, and expressed his opinion that the ragged urchin who had been dragged before 
him, at eighteen years of age, and constrained, perforce, to accept the responsi- 
bilities of m'atrimony, never wrote the play of Measure for Measure or Richard II. 
The .Bishop of Worcester is also referred to in that part of the Cipher narra- 
tive which grows out of the root-number 523, modified by commencing to count at 
the end of the second subdivision of 74:2, the same subdivision which gives us all 
the 33S story; but instead of counting only to the beginning of the subdivision, 
(167), we go to the top of the column, which gives us 21S words as a modifier. We 
then have: 

523—218=305. 

And if we again modify this by deducting 193 (upper 75:2), we have left 112; 
or, if we deduct 254 (lower 75:2), we have 51 left; and if we deduct 50 at the end 
of scene second (76:1) we have 255 left. And this last number, 255, gives us the 
words Bishop and Worcester. Thus: if the reader will commence at the top of 76:1, 
and count down the column, counting in all the words, bracketed and hyphenated, 
he will find that the 255th word is the end word of the 240th compound word Arch- 
bishop; and if he will carry his 255th number down the next preceding column, but 
not counting in the bracketed and hyphenated words, he will find that the 255th 
word is the word Worcester; so that the 255th word, 76:1, is Bishop, and the 255th 
word, 75:2, is IVorcester. And observe the exquisite cunning of the work. If the 
reader will look at the opening of this chapter he will see that that same last word 
of Arch-bishop was used in the 338 narrative. That is to say, 338 minus 30 (the 
modifier on 74:2) equals 30S, and this, commencing at the beginning of scene third 
(76:1), and carried down the column, leaves 259; and 259, carried up the column, 
counting in the hyphenated words, brings us to the same word (^/V//(?/ — the last 
word of arch-bishop. And some time since we saw the arch of ihat word arch- 
bishop used to give us the first syllable of the name of the man Archer, who slew 
Marlowe ! 

But lest it should bt thought that this coming together of Bishop and Worcester, 
by the same number, 255, was another accident, I pause here, and, leaving the story 
growing out of 338 alone for a while, I give a part of the narrative in which these 
words Bishop of Worcester occur. And here I w-ould ask the reader to observe that 
you cannot dip into this text, at any point, with any of these primal root-numbers, 
505. 513. 516 or 523, without unearthing a story which coheres perfectly with the 
narrative told by the other numbers. And this has been one cause of the delay in 
publishing my book. I have been tempted to go on and on, working out the mar- 
velous tale; and I have heaps of fragments which I have not now time to put into 
shape for publication. I have been like Aladdin in the garden: I turn from one 
jewel-laden tree to another, scarce knowing which to plunder, while my publishers 
are calling down the mouth of the cave for me to hurry up. 

Cecil says to the Queen: 

523- 



305—50 (76:1)=255— 145=110— 3 b (145)=107 

30.5—50=255 

305—50=355. 

305—50=255. 



n 8—305. 










Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




1=107. 


107 


77:1 


I 




255 


77:1 


sent 




255 


76:1 


a 




255 


76:2 


short 



764 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



305—146 (76:2)=159— 1 b col.=158. 

305—50=255—32 (79:1)=223. 

305—146=159—4// col. =155. 

305—50=255—7 /; col.=248. 

305—50=255. 449—255=194 + 1=195+2 h=Wl. 

305—193=112—50 (76:1)=62. 603—62=541 + 1=542. 

305—193=112—49 (76:1)=63. 

305-193=112. 457+112=569. 

305—193=112—50=62+457=519. 

305—193=112—50=62. 

305—50=255. 508—255=253+1=254. 

305—193=112—15 b & h (193)=97. 448—97=351 + 1= 

305—49 (76:1)=256— 145=111. 577—111=466+1 

=467+3 b (145)=470. 
305—50=255—14 b & h col. =241. 
305— 193=112-^50=62. 458—62=396+1=397. 
305—50=255. 

305—49=256—5 h col.=251. 
305—145=160—3 b (145)=157. 
305—193=112. 449—112=337+1=338. 
305—146=159. 449—159=290+1=291. 
305—146=159. 498—159=339+1=340. 
305—50=255—49 (76:1)=206— 32=174— 5 b (32)= 

169—2 b col. =167. 
305—254=51. 508—51=457+1=458. 
305—193 112. 457—112=345 + 1=346. 
305—193=112—15 b & h (193)=97. 
305—50=255—11 b & h col. =244. 
305—50=255—10 b col. =245. 
305—254=51. 448—51=397+1=398. 
30.5—50=255—162 (78:1)=93. 
305—32 (79:1)=273. 468—273=195 + 1=196. 
305—50=255. 610—255=355+1=356+9 b col.= 
305—49=256. 610—256=354+1=355. 
.Q05— 50=255— 32 (79:1)=223+ 162=385— 9 ^=276. 
505—50=255—32 (79:1)=223. 





Page and 




Word. 


Ci'lur.'.n. 




158 


77:1 


time 


223 


76:2 


since, 


155 


77:1 


your 


248 


77:1 


Majesty, 


197 


76:1 


for 


542 


76:2 


my 


(63) 


76:1 


Lord 


569 


76:2 


Sir 


519 


76:2 


John, 


62 


76:2 


the 


254 


75:2 


noble 


=352 


76:1 


and 


.470 


77:1 


learned 


241 


76:1 


Bishop 


397 


76:2 


of 


255 


75:2 


Worcester, 


251 


76:1 


a 


157 


77:1 


good, 


338 


76:1 


sincere 


291 


76:1 


and 


348 


76:1 


holy 


167 


77:2 


man; 


458 


75:2 


and 


346 


76:2 


had 


97 


75:2 


a 


244 


77:1 


talk 


245 


76:1 


with 


398 


76:1 


him; 


93 


77:2 


and 


196 


78:1 


I 


365 


77:2 


gave 


355 


77:2 


him 


276 


78:1 


the 


223 


77:2 


scroll. 



Cecil had sent a short-hand writer to the play-house, who had taken down the 
play of Richard II. 

The reader will observe that 305, in this example, moves either from the lower 
subdivision of 76:1, or the upper or lower subdivision of 75:1; 255 yields 1 — sent — 
a — short — since — for — noble — Bishop — Worcester — talk — -anth — and — gave — 
scroll; while 112(305 — 193=112) yields tny — Lord — Sir — John — the — of — had — 
a. Let the reader look at the words Sir John; they both count from the end word of 
the first subdivision of 76:2, counting downward, and each is the 112th word, but 
while Sir\s 112 words from 457,/"/'« is modified by deducting 50; that is, instead 
of commencing to count with 112, from 457, we begin at the beginning of scene 
third, count in the 50 words therein, and then carry the remainder to 457, and 
thence down as before. And my Lord \s much the same; my is again 112 less 50 
(from the end of scene second downward), carried up 76:2; and Lord \s 112 less 49, 



THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER AND HIS ADVICE. 



765 



from the beginning of scene third, carried down 76:1. Surely all this cannot 
be accident. 

And the Bishop advised Cecil that Shakspere should be taken and put to the tor- 
ture and compelled to tell who wrote the PUiys. And here I would call the attention 
of the reader to one or two other points which prove the existence of the Cipher, 
and show the marvelous nature of the text. 

We have seen that 523 minus 218 equals 305, and that 305 less 193 (upper sub- 
division 75:1) makes 112. Now if we go down 75:2 the 112th word is force, while 
up the same column the 112th word is liml>s (put his limbs to the question and /o>xe 
him to tell), while in the next column the 112th word down the column is capable. 
And if we apply this 112 to the next column, we find it giving us the word sincere 
(sincere and holy), counting upward from the top of scene third; while upward from 
the end of scene second it yields sitpposel {xhe Plays it is supposed 'iha.ks^e.re was not 
capable ol writing); and down the same column the 112th word is that very word, 
capable; while carried forward to the next column it yields Sir John, and from the 
same column, 76:1, and the next, 76:2, it gives us my Lord. And observe how cun- 
ningly supposed and sincere are brought together, the one being the 112th word 
from the end of scene 2, the other the 112th word from the beginning of scene 
3, and note, too. the forced construction of the sentence: 

Turns insurrection to religion. 

Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts. 

Of course there is a clue of meaning running through this, but every word is a 
Cipher word, and the words are packed together very closely; iurns is "turns the 
water out of the fish-pond," given in Chapter VI., page 6c)-j,anle; insurrection is 
used three times in the Cipher story; religion was used in telling the purpose of the 
Plays, as given in Chapter VII., page 705, ante; and we will find it used again and 
again; and here in this chapter we have supposed, sincere and holy employed in the 
Cipher narrative. 

And Cecil expressed to the Bishop his opinion that Shakspere did not write the 
Plays. He said: 



305—50=255- 

30.5—50=255. 

305—50=255- 

305—50=255- 

30.5—50=255- 

305—50=255- 

30.-)— 50=255- 

305—50=255- 

1=389+3 
305-50=255- 
305—50=255- 
305—50=255- 
30.5—50=255- 
305—50=255- 
305—50=255 

22^ col. = 
305—193=112 
305—50=255 



-145=110- 
448—255^ 
-161=94. 
-145=110- 
-32 (79.1)= 
-146=109. 
-50=205— 
-50=205— 
/;=392. 
-32=223. 
-32 (79:1)= 
-50 (76:1)= 
-50=205. 
-;^ 1=224— 
32=223. 
48. 



_3/;(145)=107. 
=193-h1=194-h2 h col.= 
498— 94=404 -j- 1=405. 
-3 b (145)=107— 3 bhh col.= 
=223. 

577—109=468+1=469. 
146=^59. 447—59=388-1-1= 
146—59. 447—59=388+ 



=223—145=78—50 (76:1)= 
=205—145=60. 

508—205=303 + 1=304. 
14.5=79—50 (76:1)=29. 

248—223=25+1=26+ 



—32 (79:1)=223. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




107 


77:1 


I 


196 


76:1 


ventured 


405 


76:1 


to 


=104 


77:1 


tell 


223 


74:2 


him 


469 


77:1 


my 


=389 


75:1 


suspicion 


392 


75:1 


that 


223 


79:1 


Master 


28 


75:2 


Shak'st 


60 


75:1 


spur 


304 


75:2 


is 


29 


76:2 


not 


48 


74:2 


himself 


112 


76:1 


capable 


223 


78:1 


enough, 



766 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



Word. 

305—50=255—32 (79:1;=233— 5 b (32)=318— 50 

(76:1)=168. 168 
305— 50=255— 32 (79:1)=223— 146=77— 30=47. 

447-47=400+1=401. 401 

305—50=255—32 (79:1 =223-5 /' (32)=218— 50= 168 
305—50=255—32=223—146=77—30=47. 447—47 

=400+l=401 + 3/;=404. 404 
305—50=255-32=223—5/; (32)=218— 49 (76:1)= 

169. 508— 169=339 + 1=340+2// col.==342. 342 

305—50=255—31=224. 498—224=274+1=275. 275 
305—50=255—31=224—5 b (31)=219— 50 (76:1)= 

169. 508—169=339 + 1=340. 340 

305—50=255—32 (79:1)=223— 3 h col.=220. 220 
305—50=255—32 (79:1)=223. 317(79:1)— 223=94+1=95 

305-50=255—49 (76:1)=206— 161 (78:1)=45. 45 
305— 50=255— 49=206— 161=45— 32 (79:1)=13. 

462—13=449+1=450. 450 
305— 50=255— 31=224— 145=79— 50(76:1)=29+ 

457=486. 486 

305—50=255—31=224—146=78. 78 

305—50=255. 449—255=194+1=195. 195 

305—50=255—50=205—32=173—5^ (32)=168. 168 

305—50=255—49=206—161=45—32=13. 13 

305—50=255—146=109—3/; (146)=106. 106 
305—161 (78:1)=144. 457—144=313 + 1=314+5 / col=319 



-109=388+1=390. 



390 
111 
170 
337 



305—50=255—146=109. 498 
305—49 (76:1)=256— 145=111. 
305—50=255—32 (79:1)=223— 50=173— 3 h col. 
305—193=112. 448—112=336+1=337. 
305—50=255—31=224—5 /; (31)=219— 50=169— 49 

(76:1)=120. 120 

305—50=255—162=93—50 (76:1)=43. 43 

305—193=112. 284—112=172+1=173. 173 

305—50=255—50=205—146=59. 448—59=389+1=390 
305—50=255—31=224—5 b (31)=319— 50=169— 50 

=119— 2/; col. =117. 117 

305—50=255—32=223—146=77. 610—77=533+1 

=534+2 7/ col. =536. 536 

305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224. . 224 

305—50=255—50=205. 205 

305—50=255—50=205—145=60—3 /; (145)=57. 

284—57=227+1=238. 228 

305—50=255—32 (79:1)=223— 146=77— 30 (74:2)= 

47—9 /; & /; col. 38. 38 

30.5—50=255—50=205—146=59. 449—59=390+1=391 
305—50=255—50=205—146=59. 284—59=335+1=226 
305—50=355—50=205—146=59. 193—59=134+1=135 
305—145=160. 508-160=348+1=349+5 /; & h= (354) 
305—50=255—31=224—5/; (31)=219. 219 

305—50=255—31=224—4 // col =220. 330 



Page and 
Column. 



75:3 

75:1 
76:2 



75:2 

76:1 

75:3 

76:3 
79:1 

78:3 



76:3 

76:1 
76:1 
76:1 
78:3 
77:1 
79:2 
76:1 
77:1 
76:1 
76:1 

75:3 

75:3 
74:1 
76:1 

75:3 

77:3 
76:3 
75:3 

74:1 



and 

hath 
not 



r5:l knowledge 



enough, 
to 

have 

writ 

the 

much 



78:3 admired 



plays 

that 

we 

all 

rate 

so 

high, 

and 

which 

are 

supposed 

to 

be 
his; 
and 

which 

ever 

since 

the 

death 



75:1 


of 


76:1 


More 


74:1 


low 


75:3 


have 


75:3 


been 


76:1 


put 


76:1 


forth 



THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER AND Hrs ADVICE, 



767 



305 
305 
305 
305 
305 
305 
305 



1—50=255—31= 
50=255—32= 



=224—145= 
=223—146= 



=79. 



-50=255—31=224—5 b (31)=219— 50=169— 145= 
-50=355—162=93. 

-50=255—20 b col. =235. 



305 

305 
305 
305 
305 
305 
305 
305 
305- 
305 

305 

305- 

305- 
305 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305 
305- 
305- 
305 
305- 

305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305- 
305 
305- 



-146=77— 3/; col.=74. 
-146=77—50 (76:1)=27. 



284— 59=225 -hi 



-50=255—32=223- 
-50=255—32=223- 

603—27=576+1=577. 

-50=255—50=205—146=59. 

=226-h6/^ col. =232. 

-50=255—50=205—146=59. 

-50=255—50=205—146=59. 
,—50=255—50=205—145=60. 
50=255—50=205—146=59. 
,50=255—50=205—146=59—6 b & h col. =53. 
—50=255—32=223—146=77—2 // col. =75. 

-50=255—31 (79:1)=224— 145=79. 

-50=255—31=224—145=79. 284—79=205+1^ 

-50=255—32=223—5 b (32)=218— 50=168. 

458-168=290+1=291. 

-50=255- 50=205— 146=59— 3 /' (146)=56. 

248—56=192+1=193+2/^ & 7^=195. 

-50=255— 31=224— 145=79— 30 (74:2)=49. 

447—49=398 + 1 =399 + 3=402. 

-193=112— 15 /> & //=97— 10/; col. =87. 

-50=255—50=205—145=60. 248—60=188+1= 

-50=255—49 (76:1)=206. 603—206=397+1= 

-146=159—3/^ (146)=156. 

-49 (76:1)=256— 145=111. 577—111=466+1= 

-50=255—145=110. 

-50=255—50=205. 

-50=255—32 (79:1)=223— 50 (76:1)=173. 

-50=255—49 (76:1)=206. 

-50=255. 449—255=194+1=195. 

-162=143—2 h col.=141. 

-50=255—31=224—5 / (31)=219— 4// col.= 

-50=255-162=93. 577—93=484+1=485. 

-50=255-49=206-162—44. 610—44=566+1 

567+2 /^ col. =569. 

-50=255—32 (79:1)=223— 146=77— 5 b & h col.= 

-50=255—50=205—32=173. 603—173=430+1= 

-49=256—30=226—50 (76:1)=176— 1 h col.= 

-193=112. 248—112=136+1=137+12 b & h co\.- 

-50=255—32=223. 610—223=387+1=388. 

-49=256—145=1 1 1 . 457—1 1 1 =346+1=347. 

-50=255. 508—255=253+1=254—3 h col.= 

-50=255— 32=(79:1)=223— 7 b & h col. =216. 

-50=255—162=93—3 / col. =90. 

-50=255—32=223. 518—223=295+1=296. 

-162=143. 



tVord. 


Page and 

Column. 




79 


76:1 


in 


77 


77:2 


his 


= 24 


77:1 


name. 


93 


77:2 


And 


235 


75:2 


that 


74 


76:1 


it 



577 

232 
59 
59 
60 
59 
53 
75 
79 
=206 

291 

195 

402 
87 
=189 
398 
156 
467 
110 
205 
173 
206 
195 
141 
215 
485 

569 

= 73 

=431 
175 

=149 
388 
347 
257 
216 
90 
296 

(143) 



76:2 

74:1 
75:3 

74:3 
76:2 
74:1 
74:1 
76:1 
74:1 
74:1 

76:2 

74:2 

75 1 
74:1 
75:1 
76:2 
77:1 
77:1 
77:1 
75:3 
75:2 
75:2 
76:1 
76:1 
77:3 
77:1 

77:3 
76:1 
76:2 
76:2 
74:1 
77:3 
76:2 
75:2 
76:2 
76:1 
79:1 



IS 

rumoured 

that 

every 

one 

of 

them 

was 

prepared 

under 

his 

name 

by 

some 

gentleman. 

His 

Lordship 

advised 

that 

the 

best 

thing 

we 

could 

do 

is 

to 

make 

him 

a 

prisoner, 

and, 

as 
soon 

as 

he 

is 



73:1 apprehended, 



768 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



305—193=112—49 (76:1)=63. 508—63=445+1= 
305—50=255—32=223—146=77- 50 (76:1)=27. 

457—27=430+1=431. 
305—50=255—50=205—145=60. 508—60=448+1= 
3J5— 50=255— 50=205— 145=60. 508—60=448 

+ 1=449 + 1/^=450. 
305—50=255—146=109. 498—109=389 + 1=390. 
305—146=159—3 /' (146)=156. 
305—50=255-50=205—31 (79:1)=174. 457—174= 

283+1=284. 
305—193=112—15 /;& //=97— 49=48. 
305—50=255—31=224. 610—224=386+1=387+ 

2 /;=389. 
305—50=255—32 (79 ■.1)=223— 146=77. 498—77= 

421 + 1=422. 
305— 193-=112. 248—112=136+1=137. 
305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224. 610—224=386+1= 
305—193=112. 248—112=136+1=137+11 b col.= 
305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224. 448—224=224+1= 
305—50=255—32 (79:1)=223. 448—223=225 + 1= 
305—50=255—50=205. 
305—50=255—32=223—5 b (32)=218. 448—218= 

230+1=231 + 5 b & //=236. 
305—146=159. 457—159=298+1=299. 
305—50=255—32=223—162=6 1 . 
305—50=255—162=93. 498—93=405+1=406. 
305—50=255—50=205—31=174—5 b & //=169. 

610—169=441 + 1=442+9 b col.=451. 
305—49=256—162=94. 577—94=483+1=484. 
305—50=255—32=223. 610—223=387+1=388. 
305—50=255—145=110— 3 /;(145)=107— 3 b & /i col.= 
305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224. 284—224=60+1=61 

+ 1 A col. =68. 
305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224— 4 b col. =220. 
305—50=255. 32+255=287. 
30.5—50=255—32 (79:1)=223. 457—223=234 

+ 1=235. 
305—50=255—146=109—3 b (146)=106. 577—106 

=471 + 1=472. 
305—50=255-50=205—146=59-2 /i col. =57. 
305—50=255—49 (76:1)=206— 145=61— 3 b (145)= 
305—50=255—32=223. 498—223=275+1=276+ 

2 /; col.=278. 
305-50=255—32 (79;1)=223— 5 b (32)=218. 
30.5—50=255—50 (76:1)=205— 145=60— 3 b (145)= 

57—1 /i col.=56. 
305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224— 5 /' (31)=219. 457— 

219=238+1=239 + 11 b & /2=250. 
305—193=112—1 /i col. =111 
305—193=112—10 /; col. =102. 
305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224— 5 /.(31)=210. 



Word. 
446 

431 
=449 

450 
390 
156 

284 
48 

389 

422 
137 

387 
148 
225 
226 
205 

236 

299 

61 

406 

451 

484 

388 

= 104 

68 
220 
287 

235 



Page and 

Column. 

75:2 



r6:2 



75:2 
76:1 
76:1 

76:2 
76:2 



76:1 
74:2 
77:2 
74:2 
76:1 
76:1 
76:1 

76:1 
76:2 

77:2 
76:1 



77:1 
77:2 
77:1 

74:1 
76:2 
79:1 

76:2 



bind 

him 
with 

iron, 

and 

bring 

him 
before 

the 

Council; 
and 

it 

is 
more 
than 
likely 

the 
knave 
would 
speak 

the 

truth, 

and 

tell 

who 

writ 
it. 

But 



472 


77:1 


in 


57 


76:1 


the 


58 


76:1 


event 


278 


76:1 


that 


218 


76:2 


he 


56 


77:1 


lied 


250 


76:2 


about 


111 


75:1 


the 


102 


74:1 


matter 


219 


77:2 


your 



THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER AND HIS ADVICE. 769 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

305— 50=255— 31 (79:1 )=324. 457—224=283+1= 234 76;2 Grace 

305— 49 (7G:1)=256— 145=111. Ill 75:2 should 

305—193=112—15 b & //=97— 49 (76:1)=48. 457— 

48=409+1=410. 410 76:2 have 

305— 193=112— 3 /5 col. =109. 109 76:1 his 

305—193=112. 508— 112=396-hl=397. 397 75:2 limbs 

305—193=112. 457— 112=345 + 1=346+5 /;col.= 351 76:3 put 

305—50=255-50=205—31 (79-l)=174. 448—174 

=274+1=275. 275 76:1 to 

305—50=255—32=224—5 b (32)=219. 449—219=230 

+ 1=331 + 5 b & //=236. 236 76:1 the 

305— 49 (76:1)=256— 145=111. 603—111=492 + 1= 493 76:2 question 

305— 50=255— 49 (76:1)=206— 145=61. 61 76:1 and 

305—193=112. 113 75:2 force 

305—354=51. 448—51=397+1=398. 398 76:1 him 

305—254=51—2 // col. =49. 49 76:1 to 

305— 50=256— 31 (79:1)=224— 13 (^ &// col. =211. 311 77:3 confess 

305—50=355—50=205—162=43—1 A col.=42. 42 77:2 the 

305—50=255—32=223—5 6 (32)=218. 449—218= 

331 + 1=233+5 /;& /,=S37. 237 76:1 truth. 

Here, it will be observed, we have two more instances where Shakst-spur and 
More-loiv come into the Cipher narrative by countings diiTerent from those already- 
given. And if all this be accident, then surely we have a wonderful array of words 
growing out of 305. Take that last sentence: Your Grace should have his limbs 
put to the question and force him to confess the truth; here every word is the 305th 
word, and they are all found in four columns, 75:2, 76:1, 76:2 and 77:2. Confess 
only occurs two other times in this play; limbs occurs but two other times in this 
play, and /cvrt' but three other times in this play. I think an examination will 
show that wherever limbs, fore and confess are found in the Plays the word question 
is near at hand. 

"yJ/rtj-Zfr Shakspere" was used in that day where we would say "ylZ/j/c-rShakspere." 
And observe that every word of Master Shakst-spur is the 255th word [523 — 218 
(74:2) — 305 — 50 (■76:i)=255]. Master and Shakst are each 255 minus 32, the frag- 
ment at the top of 79:1, and Shakst and spur are both taken through the second 
section of 76:2 and then carried backward. 

As a curious illustration of the adjustment of the length of columns to the 
necessities of the Cipher I would call attention to the first column of page 74, the 
first of the play. If the reader will turn back to pages 724 and 725 he will find 
that the same words, prepared (79 — 74:1) and under {20b — 74:1), which are used in 
the foregoing narrative, were there used as growing out of a different Cipher num- 
ber, to-vvit, 516; thus: 516 — 167^349 — 22 b & h=2>-l — 248^79. Now if wegodozan 
the column (74:1) the 79th word is prepared,- and if we go up the column the 79th 
word is ?/«^(?r(" prepared under the name of," etc.) But we have just seen that 
305 minus 50 leaves 255, and this minus 49 (76:1) leaves 206; now if we carry 206 
dozvn that same column (74:1), it gives us again the same word under; and if we 
carry it up the column it gives us again that same word prepared. So that the 
reader can perceive that the number of words in the column between "jg and £o6 Vfas 
fixed, and therefore the length of the whole column, by the necessity of making 
prepared the 79th word from the top and the 206th word from the bottom, and under 
the 79th word from the bottom and the 206th word from the top ! Was anything 
more ingenious than this ever seen in the world? 



CHAPTER XV. 



SHAKSPERE'S A RI STOCK A TIC PRETENSIONS. 



Autolycus. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born. 
CloivK. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours. 

Winter'' s Tale, r', J. 

EVERY Cipher word m this chapter grows out of the root-inimbcr 
^2j — 2i8=jojj and all but the first four commence from the 
end of scene 4, act i, or the beginning of act ii, scene i. 

I have given but part of the story in the foregoing chapter. 
The Bishop goes on to tell Cecil his reasons for thinking that Shak- 
spere, if arrested, will tell who wrote the Plays. He says that 
Shakspere is no longer in poverty: 



305—50=255—31 (79:1)=224. 



Page and 
Word. Column. 

224 78:2 Poverty 



And that neither he nor his men will risk the loss of their heads or their goods 
to shield the real writer of the Plays: 



305—50=255—50=205—31 (79:1)=174. 
305—50=255—31=224—31 1> & //=193. 
305—50=255—32=223 



174 76:1 loss 

193 78:2 heads 

223 76:1 goods 



And the Bishop tells Cecil that, t'hough Shakspere— 

305—31=274—30 (74:2)=244— 199 (79:1)=45. 468 

—45=423+1=424. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /; (31)=219— 4 A col.= 
305—31=274- 50=224— 5 1> (32)=219. 219—146= 

73_3 /, (146)=70. 577—70=507+1=508+2 //= 
305- -3 1=274— 50=224. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /; (32)=239. 
305—31=274-50=224-5 d (32)=219. 
305—31=274—50=224. 610—224=386+1=387+ 

3 /i col.=390. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 i (32)=218— 50=168— 146 

=22-3 ^ (146)=19. 577—19=558+1=559 + 1 //=560 

he is now wealthy, and that his coffers are full. In that age there were no banks, 
and a man's money was contained in his coffers. We are told that when the 
father of Pope retired from business, as a merchant in London, he carried home 

770 



424 


78:1 


lives 


215 


78:2 


in 


510 


77:1 


great 


224 


78:2 


poverty 


239 


78:2 


in 


219 


78:2 


his 



390 



r9:2 



young 



days, 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




274 


78:2 


His 


220 


78:2 


coffers 


190 


78:2 


are 


240 


78:2 


full. 



SHA KSPERE' S A RIS TO CRA TIC PRE TENSIONS. 7 7 1 

with him |ioo,ooo in a chest, and when he needed money he went to his chest 
and took it out. There was no drawing of checks in that day. 

And here I would ask the reader to note the evidences of the Cipher connected 
with that word coffers. The root-number we are working with is 305 [523 — 21S 
(74:2)=305]; now, there is at the top of column i of page 79 a fragment of scene 
4, act i, containing 31 words; this deducted from 305 leaves 274, and if we count 
down the next column forward (78:2), that is, if we return into the scene which gave 
us the 31 words, the 274th word in the column, and the 305th from the end of the scene, 
is the word his (" should lead his forces hither"). But if we deduct 50 — the com- 
mon modifier of 74:2 — from 274, we have 224, and the 224th word x's, poverty , just 
given in the preceding sentence; but if we count in the four hyphens in the column, 
the 224th word is then the 220th word, coffers; and if we deduct 30 — the other com- 
mon modifier of 74:2 — from 224, and count down the same column, we have 194. 
And if we again count in the four hyphenated words, this makes the 194th word 
the 190th word, are; and if we take 274 again and deduct 30 from that we have 244; 
and if we again go down the same column and again count in the same four 
hyphenated words, the 244th word becomes the 240th word, full. Here then we 
have, in regular order, his coffers are full; thus: 



305—31=274. 

305—31=274—50 (74:2)=224— 4 /^ col. =220. 
305—31=274—50 (74:2)=224— 30=194— 4 // col.= 
305—31=274—30=244—4// col. =240. 

Here every word is the 274th, and is found in the same column, and the last 
three are produced by counting in the same four hyphenated words. 

And the Bishop goes on, by the same root-number, 274, to tell how Shakspere 
got so much money. And here are some striking evidences of the Cipher. We 
have the sentence "'divided in three divisions," referring to the distribution of the 
money made out of the Plays; — one part to the theater, one to the actors and one 
to the ostensible author, Shakspere, who, in turn, divided with the real author, 
Bacon. Now, the word divisions is very rare in the Plays; it occurs but twice in 
this play, and tiot once besides in all the other nine Histories ! Yet here we find it 
co-related arithmetically with divided and three; and this is the only time divided 
occurs in this play ! And it is found but seven other times in all the Histories. 

We saw that 305 — 31 (79:i)=274 — 30 (74:2)=244, and that 244, minus the 
hyphenated words, was full. But if we deduct from 244 the 27 bracketed words 
in the same column (78:2) we have left 217, and the 217th word in the same col- 
umn is divided. Now we saw that 305 — 31=274 carried dozim the column produced 
his (" his coffers"); but if we carry it ///the same column it gives us as the 189th word 
that rare word divisions, the only word of the kind, with one exception, in all the 
ten Historical Plays; and as we saw that counting in the hyphens produced the 
words coffers are full, so, if we count in the hyphens in that last example, we 
have as the 274th word up the column, not divisions, but three; "divided three 
divisions;" and if we deduct the common modifier, 198 (74:2), from 274, and go up 
the next preceding column with the remainder, 76, we have the 393d word, into; — 
"divided into three divisions." But to make the division of the profits a fair one 
the shares ought to have been equal: and here we have it: 305 — 31=274; and if we 
deduct from 274, 79, the common modifierof 73:1, we have left 195; and if we count 
in '.he 31 bracketed and hyphenated words we have the 164th word, equal. But 
if from 274 we deduct the common modifier of 74:2, 50, we have 224 left, and if 



772 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



we deduct from 224 the same 79 (73:1) we have 145, and the 145th word down 
the column is and, but carried into the bracket sentence it is fair. And put 
together we have this sentence: 



305—31=274—30 (74:2)=344— 197 (74:3)=47. 4G3— 

47=415+1=416. 
305—31=274—30 (74:2)=244— 27 b col.=217. 
305—31=274. 402—274=188+1=189+8 b & //= 
305—31=274—5 /^ (31)=269. 610—269=341 + 1= 

342+9 b col.=351. 
305— 31=274— 198 (74:2)=76. 468—76=392 + 1=393. 
305—31=274. 462—274=188+1=189+3 A col.= 
305— 3 1 =274— 50=224— 79=145. 
305—31=274—50=224—79=145. 
305—31=274—79 (73:2)=195— 31 b & /i col.=164. 
305—31=274. 462—274=188+1=189. 
305—31=274—50=224—50=1 74. 
30.5—31=274—50=224—5 b (31)=219. 
305—31=274—50=224—79=145. 462—145=317+1= 
305— 31=274— 3 /^ col.=371. 

305—31=274—50=224—30=194. 462—194=268+1= 
305—31=274—50=224—79 (73:2)=145— 22 b col.= 
305—31=274—50=224+31=255—3 b col. =252. 
305—31=274—5 b (31)=269. 610—269=341 + 1= 

342+3 /^ col.=345. 
305—31=274—50=224—30 (74:2)=194— 79 (73:1) 

=115. 462—115=347+1=348+6 b & h col.= 
305—31=274—50=224—79=145. 462—145=317+ 

1=318+5=323. 
305—31=274—50=224—50 (76:1)=174. 603—174 

=429+1=430. 
305—31=274^218=56. 
305—31=274—30 (74:2)=244— 219 (74:2)=25. 463 

—25=437+1=438. 
305—31=274—5 b (31)=269— 197 (74:3)=72. 
305—31=274—198=76. 76—57=19. 523—19= 

504+1=505. 
305—50=255—32=233—30=1 93—1 6 1=33 + /2=33 
305—32=273-30=243—198 (74:2)=45— 22 b (198)= 

23. 518—23=495 + 1=496. 
305—31=274. 598—274=334+1=325. 
305—286 (31 to 317, 79:1)=19. 462—19=443+1= 
305—31=274—50=224—50 (76:1)=174. 
305— 31 =274— 50=234— 79=145 . 32 + 145=1 77 . 
305—31=274—218=56—2 /^=54. 
305—31=374—319=55. 

305—31=374. 598—374=334+1=335+1 h col.= 
305—31=274—318=56—3 //=54. 
305—33=373—30=343—13 h & (^=330. 
305—31=274—162=112—2 A col.=110. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




416 

317 


78:3 
78:3 


They 
divided 


197 


78:3 


the 


351 
393 


77:3 
78:3 


money 
into 


193 


78:3 


three 


[145] 
145 


78:3 
78:3 


fair 
and 


164 
189 


78:3 
78:3 


equal 
divisions. 


174 


78:3 


and 


319 


78:3 


his 


=318 


78:2 


ov7n 


371 
=269 


77:2 
78:2 


part 
is 


123 


78:2 


five 


252 


79:1 


hundred. 


345 


77:3 


marks. 


354 


78:3 


He 


323 


78:3 


hath 


430 
(56) 


76:3 

78:3 


bought 
a 


438 

72 


78:3 
78:2 


goodiy 
estate 


505 


80:2 


called 


32 


78:1 


New j 


496 


79:1 


Place, J 


325 


79:2 


and 


444 


78:3 


he 


174 


76:2 


is 


177 

(54) 

(55) 

326 


79:1 

78:2 
78:2 
79:2 


going 

to 
pluck 
down 


54 


78:2 


the 


330 


77:2 


old 


110 


78:3 


house, 



SHAKSPERE'S ARTSTOCRA TIC PRETENSIONS. 



773 



Word. 

19 

174 



(271) 

170 

54 



19'J 

43 
255 
384 
194 
429 
170 
432 

384 



Page and 

Column. 

78:2 
7(io 



79:2 
7G:2 
76:1 

78:2 

78:2 
79:1 
78:1 
78:2 
78:1 
78:2 
78:1 

75:2 



which 
is 

gone 
to 
decay, 

and 

build 

a 

great 

one 

in 

the 

spring, 

fit 



305—286 (31 to 317, 79:1)=19. 
305—31=274—50=224—50=174. 
305—31=274—5 /; (31)=269. 533—269=264+1= 

265+/;=271. 
305—31=274—50=224—50 (76:1)=174— 4 b col.= 
305—81=274—218 (74:2)=56— 2 h col —54. 
305—31=274—5 b (31)=269. 462—269=193+1= 

194+5 b col. =199. 
305—31=274—30 (74:2)=244— 5 /; (31)=239— 197 

(74:2)=42. 
305— 3 1=274— 50=224 + 3 1 =255 . 
305—31=274—50=224+162=386—2 h col.=384. 
305—31=274—5 b (31)=269. 462—269=193+1= 
305—31=274—5 b (31)=269+ 163=432— 3 /; col.= 
305—31=374—50=224—50=174—4 // col. =170. 
305— 31=274— 5^ (31)=269+163=433. 
305—31=374—146 (76:2)=128— 3 b (146)=135. 508 

—125=383+1=384. 
305— 31=274— 50-=324. 498—224=274+1=275+ 

2 (5. col. =377. 
305—31=274—198=76. 
305—31=374—50=334—30=194 -145=49. 577—49 

=528+1=529+2/^ col. =531. 
305—31=274+162=436—20/' & h col. =416. 
305—31=274—50=234—163=62—2 // col.=60. 
305—31=274—30 (74:2)=344— 163=82— 14 / & h= 
305—31=374—50=334—50 (76:1)=174. 498—174= 

334+1=335. 
305— 31=374— 197 (74:3)=77— 65 (79:3)=13— 3 h (65) 

=10. 338—10=338+1=339. 
305—31=274—50=334—50 (76:1)=174— 3 b col.= 
305—31=374—50=334—50=174—145=39 449-39 

=430+1=431. 
305—31=274—197 (74:2)=77. 
305—31=274—197 (74:2)=77— 11 /;=66. 
305—31=274—197 (74:2)=77— 65 (79:1)=12— 2 /; (64)= 10 
305—31=274—198 (74:2>=76— 64 (79:1)=12. 338 

13=336+1=337. 
305—31=374—30=244—5=239—31 b & // col.= 

Architects were in that age called siii-7'eyors; this is shown in the text where the 
word is used. 

Foimdatiott occurs only eight times in all the Plays, only three times in the 
Historical Plays, and only this one time in this play. Walls occurs but this time 
in this play ! And here we have these two rare words coming together, one on page 
78:2, and the other on page 80, that is to say, in two contiguous scenes, and linked 
together by the same root-number and the same modification of the same root-num- 
ber, to-wit: 305 — 31=274 — 197 (74:2)=77; and in each case the bracket words are 
counted in to place the terminal number. And the same remnant, 12, which gives 
us, carried dovyn 80: 1 {mi?tus the brackets in 65), tcw/Zj-, gives us, carried up from the 
end of the scene, /«;-/(" walls part up "); and, modified by deducting the brackets, it 



277 


76:1 


for 


76 


78:2 


a 


531 


77:1 


prince. 


416 


78:1 


Indeed, 


60 


78:2 


the 


68 


78:2 


surveyors 



325 



r6:l 



are 



329 


80:1 


now 


171 


76:1 


engaged 


421 


76:1 


and 


77 


79:1 


the 


66 


78:2 


foundation 


= 10 


80:1 


walls 


327 


80:1 


part 


208 


78:2 


up. 



774 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



gives us the word wc'c'/ while the 12th word in the same column is pretty, which, 
alludes to Shakspere's daughter Susanna: 



Word. 

305—31=274—162=112. 112 
305—31=274—50=224—145=79—65 (79:2)=14— 2 h 

(65)=12. 12 
305— 31=274— 50=224— 5 /J (32)=219. 420—219 

=201 + 1=202. 202 

305—31=274—197 (74:2)=77+ 162=339. 239 

305—31=374—197=77. 77 

305—31=374—162=113+185=297. 397 

30.5—31=274—30=244—6 b&h col. =238. 238 

305—31=274—30=244—197=47—2 b col. =45. 45 

305— 31=274— 3/^ col. =271. 271 



Page and 
Column. 

78:2 



80:1 

81:2 
78:1 
78:1 
81:1 
81:2 
78:2 
81:2 



His 

pretty 

daughter, 

to 

whom 

he 

is 

much 

endeered. 



And the Bishop, who had an eye for the beautiful, proceeds to describe 
Susanna more particularly, and tells that she has — 

305—31=374. 420—374=146+1=147. 147 81:3 a 

305— 31=274— 30=244— 5 /^ (31 )=239— 3 // col.= (236) 81:2 sweet 
305—31=374—50=224. 420—234=196+ 1=197+ 

9^ col. =206. 206 81:3 visage, 

And has been well taught: 

305— 31=374— 50=334— 50 (76:1)=174— 146=38. 



339—47=293+ 



550 
295 



77:1 
80:1 



577—28=549+1=550. 
305—31=274—30=244—197=47. 
1=293+2 /;=295. 

Which the Bishop regards as foolish in a man in Shakspere's station in life: 

305—31=274—30=344—197=47. 339—47=393+1=293 80:1 foolish. 



well 
taught. 



And the Bishop proceeds to tell that Shakspere not only sought to "bear 
arms " as a gentleman, but that he was trying to have his father, John Shakspere, 
knighted ! This statement will appear astounding, but I have already shown (p. 51, 
ante, et seq.) that he tried to obtain a coat-of-arms for his father by false representa- 
tions; and he might have hoped that, through the influence of his friends in London 
and about the court, he could accomplish the other and greater object; or it may 
have been but a rumor obtaining among the aristocracy of the neighborhood, who 
were indignant at the rich plebeian setting up for a gentleman. It was in October, 
1596, that the application was made to the College of Arms for a grant of coat- 
armor to John Shakspere. Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

It may be safely inferred from the unprosperous circumstances of the grantee 
that this attempt to confer gentility on the family was made at the poet's expense. 
This is the first evidence we have of his rising pecuniary fortunes, and of his deter- 
mination to advance in social position.' 

And Grant White, it seems, shrewdly and correctly guessed * that there must 
have been some protest against the granting of the coat-of-arms and that this 
caused the delay from 1596, when the first application was made, to 1599, when it 
was renewed with sundry alterations. And here we are told that Sir Thomas 



' Outlines^ p. 87. 



2 See page 53, ante. 



SHAKSPERES ARISTOCRATIC PRETENSIONS. 



115 



Lucy was the one who blighted the actor's hopes, 
of Shakspere and his daughter Susanna, that — 



The Bishop tells Cecil, speaking 



Word 
305— 31=274— 50=224r-197 (74:2)=27. 27 

305— 31=274— 5 ^ (31)=269. -269 

305—31=274—50=224—197=27. 533—27=506+ 1=507 
305—31=274—30=244—5 1> (31)=239. 339—239= 

100+1=101. 101 

305—31=274—198 (74:2)=76— 64 (79:2)=12. 396— 

12=384+1=385. 385 

305—31=274—145 (76:2)=129— 3 /;=126. 162—126 

=36+1=37. 
305—31=274—50=224—198=26. 462—26=436+1 
305—31=274—145 (76:2)=129— 3 /' (145)=126. 462 

—126=336-*- 1=337. 
305—31=274^30=244—5 b (31)=239+162=401. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 l> (31)=239. 338—239 

=99+1=100+7 -^ col. =107. 
305—31=274—50=224—30=194. 534—194=340 

+ 1=341+8 l>& h col.=349. 
305—31=274—50=224—197=27. 186—27=159 

+ 1=160. 
305—32=273—50=223—16 b & h col.=207. 
305— 31=27*— 50=224— 198=26 . 
305—31=274—5 h (31)=269— 218=51 + 162=213. 
305—31=274—50=224—30=194 + 162=356. 
305— 31=274— 30=244r-58 (80:1)=186. 
305—31=274—197=77. 
305—31=274—198 (74:2)=76+ 162=238. 
305—31=274—218 (74:2)=56. 
305—31=274—30=244—197=47. 598—47=551 

+ 1=552. 
305—31=274—218 (74:2)=56. 468—56=412+1= 

The word /f/^ was used in that age where we would say 
bership. Thus in Macbeth we have: 



Page and 




Column. 




79:2 


It 


78:2 


is 


80:1 


the 



80:1 



80:1 



earnest 



desire 



37 


78:1 


of 


:437 


78:2 


his 


337 


78:2 


heart 


401 


78:1 


to 


107 


80:1 


make 


349 


79:2 


her 


100 


81:2 


a 


207 


79:2 


lady 


26 


78:1 


and 


213 


78:1 


advance 


356 


78:1 


himself 


186 


80:1 


among 


77 


79:2 


the 


238 


78:1 


file 


56 


78:2 


of 


552 


79:2 


the 


413 


78:1 


quality. 



list or catalogue or mem- 



I have ayf/f of all the gentry.' 

The word quality was the old expression for aristocracy. In Henry F., iv, 
8, we have the phrase, "gentlemen of blood and quality; " and in Lear, v, 3, we 
have: " Any man of quality or degree." 

And here I would note that Halliwell-Phillipps- showsthat A^e^a Place had been 
so named before Shakspere bought it; and that forty-eight years before his pur- 
chase, to-wit, in 1549, it^ ^^'^s "in great ruyne and decay and unrepayryd;" after 
that it was owned by different parties before coming into Shakspere's hands. 

And here, it seems to me, we have an instance of Bacon's profound prevision. 
I have noted elsewhere how passages were injected into the quartos to break up 
the count, so that, should any one attempt to get on the track of the Cipher, he 
would be thrown off the scent; for a few words added upon one page might destroy 



1 Macbeth, v, 2. 



* Outlines, p. 395. 



776 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



the Cipher for half-a-dozen pages. And I have also noted that sometimes these 
additions contained very significant words, the better to attract and mislead the 
investigator. And in this instance we find that, in act ii, scene 2, in Prince Henry's 
speech, commencing "Belike, then, my appetite was not princely got," such an 
additional paragraph was thrown into the text, and that it contained the word 
ruins:- — ■ " bawl out the ruins of thy linen." Linen is preserved in the Folio, but 
the rest of the sentence is omitted. Now if any one had imagined, in 159S, that he 
perceived in all this: bought — estate — pluck — dozvn — old — house — foundation — 
walls — build — suii'eyors — new — place — decay, etc., a Cipher reference to Shak- 
spere's home at Stratford, he would naturally fasten on that word, 7-uins, as a part 
of the story, and would spend his acumen on it; and thus "the non-significants," 
as Bacon calls them, would have diverted his attention from the significants. 

And I would here say that a tnark or marc was equal to 13s. 4d., which would 
be about ^380, or $1,900; but as money had then, we are told, twelve times its 
present purchasing power, this would be equal to ^^4,560, or $22,800 to-day. This 
did not represent probably any particular division of the profits, but the amount 
with which Shakspere returned to Stratford about 1595 or 1596. We find by the 
records that he paid ^60 for New Place; in 159S he loaned ^30 to Richard Quiney; 
in 1602 he bought 107 acres of land near Stratford from the Combes for ^^320; and in 
1605 he purchased a moiety of a lease of the tithes of Stratford, Welcombe, etc., for 
;^440. So that of the ;^38o which he had in 1597-8, according to the Bishop, we can 
account for ^90, expended near that time, besides the amount which he expended in 
repairing and reconstructing New Place. And here I would note that Halliwell- 
Phillipps ' quotes Theobald, who was told, by Sir Hugh Clopton, that when Shak- 
spere purchased New Place he "repaired and modell'd it to his own mind;" and 
Halliwell-Phillipps thinks that " the poet made very extensive alterations, perhaps 
nearly rebuilding it." And he surmises that these alterations were made in 159S, 
because in that year Shakspere sold a load of stone to the corporation of Strat- 
ford for lod. ; but it does not follow that the repairs were finished in the same year 
they were begun, or that the surplus material was sold at once. 

And the Bishop goes on to speak very contemptuously of Shakspere's aspira- 
tions. The conflict between the play-actor and his neighbors represented the 
world-old battle between money and blood; between mortgages and pedigrees; 
between the new-rich and the old-respectable; and the position of Shakspere and 
his family could not have been a very pleasant one. 

The Bishop says of Shakspere: 



305—31=274—30=244. 610—244=366+1=367. 



305—31= 
305—31 = 
305—31= 
305—31= 
458- 
305—31= 
305—31= 
305—31= 
305—31= 
305—31= 



=274— 30=244— 197=47 -M62=209— 2 b col 
=274—30=244—197=47 -M62=209. 
=274—218 (74:2)=56-hl62=218. 
=274—50=224—30=194—50 (76:1)=144. 
-144=314-f 1=315+2 b col.=317. 
=274—197=77. 577—77=500 + 1=501. 
=274—50=224. 449—224=225 + 1=226. 
=274—50=224—30=194—145=49. 
=274—218=56. 577—56=521 + 1=522. 
=274. 577—274=303+1=304+16 b & h col. 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 


1 


367 


77:2 


He 
will 


=207 


78:1 


be 


209 


78:1 


satisfied 


218 


78:1 


with 


317 


76:2 


nothing 


501 


77:1 


less 


226 


76:1 


than 


49 


77:1 


knighthood 


522 


77:1 


and 


=320 


77:1 


the 



'^Outlines, p. 231. 





Page and 




kVord. 


Column. 




319 


80:1 


right 


78 


78:3 


to 


301 


76:2 


bear 



217 


77:1 


Sir 


49 


76:1 


To I 


189 


76:2 


amiss ) 



SHAKSPERES ARISTOCRA TIC PRETENSJONS. 777 



305—30=275—197=78. 396—78=818+1=319 

305—30=275—197=78. 

305. 603—305=298+1=299 + 2 h col =301. 

305—31=274—5 b (31)=269. 468—269=199 \- 1= 

200+3 // CO). =203. 203 78:1 arms. 

And the Bishop says that Shakspere's attempts excited the indignation of Sir 
Thomas Lucy. 

305—31=274—50=224—7 /' col. =2 17. 
305—31=274—50=224—30=194—145=49. 
305-31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239-50 (76:1)= 
305—31=274—50=224—50 (76:1)=174. 248—174= 

74+1=75+2 A col=77. 77 74:2 Loose 

305 —3 1 =274— 50=224— 30=1 94 . 194+1 94=388— 

4/^ col. =384. 384 75:1 see. 

This To-aiiiiss for Thomas may appear forced; but I give it as it stands, because 
more than once I have found it appearing in the Cipher to represent Thomas. I 
find that Webster' says there was formerly to the long sound of o, as in old, hoe, 
etc., what he calls a vanishing or diphthongal sound like oo; and I have myself 
heard the first syllable of the word Thomas pronounced so as to rhyme with Roinc. 
Webster thinks the dropping of the diphthongal sound of o in such words as bolt, 
most, t";/i', etc., is an American provincialism. Thackeray represents " the cockney" 
of London as saying Turn' -as. Thomas appears very often in 2d fleiuy IV. (and 
not once in -si Henry IV.), and Bacon could not use it too liberally without arous- 
ing suspicion; hence this subterfuge. It must be remembered, too, that the pro- 
nunciation of o was longer and softer then than now. For instance, the word 
Rome, in Bacon's time, was, it is well known, pronounced Room. We see this in 
the expression \w Julius Cicsar, i, 2: 

Now is it Ro»!e indeed and room enough 
When there is in it but one only man. 

We have modified it from !vo»i to Rome, and, if our posterity progress in the 
same direction, the year 2000 may see the city of the Cffisars called Rom or Rum. 

And the neighbors are very much disturbed over Shakspere's pretensions. 
They — 

305— 31=274— 219 (74:2)=55 + 162==217. 
305—31=274—162=112. 
305—31=274. 468—274=194+1=195. 
305— 31 =274— 50=224— 50 (76 : 1 )=1 74. 

=74+1=75+22 b=97. 
305—31=274—198=76. 
305—145=160—6/; col. =154. 
305—31=274—219 (74:2)=55. 55 78:2 plot 

to force himself into their ranks. 

305—31=274—50=224—198 (74:2)=26. 462—26= 

436+1=437. 437 78:2 His 

' Unabridged Dictionary, p. xlii. 





217 


78:1 


look 




112 


77:2 


upon 




195 


78:1 


it 


248—174 










97 


74:2 


as 




76 


78.2 


a 




154 


76:1 


bold 



778 



THE CIPHER NARRA I'lVE. 



305—31=274—50=224—163 (78:1)=62. 610—62= 

548+1=549. 
305—31=274—61 (80:2)=213. 489—213=276+1= 



277+2 h col.=279. 



57^ 



305— 31=27-4— 50=224— 146=78— 3 b (146)=75. 

—75=502+1=503+2// col =505. 
305—31=274—30 (74:2)=244— 197=47— 2 // col.= 
305—32=273—50=223—5 b (32)=218. 468—218= 

250 + 1=251 + 12 /;=263. 
805—31=274—50=224—50=174—162=12. 610-12 

=598+1=599. 
305—31=274—145=129—3 b (145)=126. 577—126 

=451 + 1=452+3 h col. =455. 
305—31=274—219=55. 163—55=108 + 1=109. 
305—31=274—219=55. 
305—31=274—50=224—30=194—162=32. 
305— 32=273— 30=243+162=405— 15-^ & //=390. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194+186=380—3 // col.= 
305—31=274—197=77. 163—77=86+1=87. 
305—31=274—50=224—30=194—5 b (31)=189— 

22^ col. =167. 
305—31=274. 
305—31=274—5/; (31)=269. 468—269=199+1= 

200-^3// col. =203. 
305—31=274—31 b & h col.=243. 
305—31=274—30=244. 489—244=345+1=246. 
305—31=274—50=224—1 62=62. 
305—31=274—50=224—49 (76:1)=175— 90 (73:1)= 
305—31=274. 468—274=194+1=195+3// col.= 
305—31=274—4// col.=270. 

Shakspere's application for coat-armor for his father, in 1596, was made to 
" William Dethick, alias Garter, principal King of Arms." See how cunningly the 
name is concealed in Death-thick. And observe how the first word goes out from 
the beginning of one scene (79:1) and the other from the end of the preceding 
scene; and each word is found by the same root-number and the same modifica- 
tion of the same root-number: death is 305, less 32, less 30, carried one scene 
backward to the beginning of scene 4, act i (78:1); while thick is 305, less 31, less 
30, less 50, carried two scenes forward to the beginning of scene 3 of act ii (81:2). 
And this word thick is comparatively rare in the Plays. It occurs but three other 
times in 2d I/cmy IV.; but once in King John ; not at all in Richard II., ist Henry 
IV., Henry V., or the first and second parts of Henry VI. Yet here we find it, just 
where it is needed to make the name of the " King of Arms," in connection with the 
story of Shakspere trying to procure a coat-of-arms. If this be accident, it is 
extraordinary. 

And Sir Thomas reads Shakspere's pedigree to the King of Arms of England. 
Referring to his father, he says: 

305— 31=274— 30=244— 50=194— 50 (76:1)=144. 144 76:2 I 

305— 31 =274- 30=244— 50=1 94—50 (76:1 )=1 44— 

!!<!■&// col.=133. 133 74:1 can 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




549 


77:2 


Lordship 


279 


81:1 


is 


505 
45 


77:1 

78:2 


very 
much 


263 


78:1 


incensed; 


599 


77:2 


he 


455 


77:1 


sent 


109 


78:1 


a 


55 


78:1 


letter 


33 


77:2 


to 


390 


78:1 


Death , 


=377 


81:3 


thick, ' 


87 


78:1 


the 


167 


78:2 


King 


374 


81:1 


of 


303 


78:1 


Arms, 


343 


78:2 


not 


346 


81:1 


to 


62 


78:2 


consent 


85 


78:2 


or 


198 


78:1 


allow 


270 


78:2 


it. 



SHAKSPERE'S ARISTOCRATIC PRETENSIONS. 



779 



458—194=264+ 



+ 1= 
259 + 



Word. 
244 
194 

270 
309 

262 

194 



Page and 
Column. 

76:2 

77:1 

76:3 
77:1 

74:1 

77:2 



assure 
you 

he 
hath 

not 
the 



93. 

3 h (146) 



3/^(146) 



3 (146) 



377 

87 
240 
239 

359 

488 



78:1 smallest 

76:1 drop 

76-2 of 

76:1 gentle 



76:1 



r7:l 



blood 



in 



305—81=274—30=244. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194. 
305— 31=274--30=244- 50=194. 

1=265+5 /'=270. 
305—31=274—5/; (31)=269. 577—269=308 
305—31=274—248=26. 284—26=258-;- 1= 

3 /-•col. =262. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=1 94. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /; (31)=239— 146=' 

468— 93=375+1=3764 1 // col.=377. 
305— 31=274— 30=244— 5 /;=239— 146=93— ; 

=90— 3/; col. =87. 
305—31=274—30=244—4/; col. =240. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=289. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 146=93 

=90. 448—90=358+1=359. 
305—31=274—80=244—5-^=239—146=93 

=90. 577—90=487+1=488. 
305—31=274—50=224—30=194—50(76:1)= 

498—144=354+1=355. 
305—31=274—50=224—30=194—50(76:1)= 

I would ask the reader to observe this sentence carefully. Take those words, 
' ' smallest drop of gentle blood. " This is the only ' "gentle " in the fust act of this play; 
and this is the only ''drop " in that act. And drop only occurs one other time in the whole 
play. And this is the only time the word Hood is found in scene 2 of act i of the Folio; 
and this is the only time smallest occurs in this entire play. And Iwdy is only found 
once in the Induction, where we find the word used above; and only twice in scene 
second. How comes it, if there is no Cipher here, that out of many thousands of 
words, this array of significant and rare words should all concur in the same 
vicinity, held together by the same number? For it will be observed that every 
word here, except two, is from the root 305 — 31^274 — 30=244; and those two are 
words carried to the beginning of new scenes or pages (74:1 and 77:1); and many of 
the words are number 244, modified by deducting the 5 bracketed words in the 31 at 
the top of 79:1, making 239. Gentle is the 239th word from the top of 76:1; drop is 
again the 239th word carried through the second section of 76:2 (146), leaving 90, and 
the 90th word, including the brackets, down 76:1, is drop; and the 90th word up the 
same column, from the end of scene second, is blood; and in the next sentence the 
90th word up the next preceding column is glove. 



-xt;^:. 


355 


76:1 


his 


144. 


144 


74:1 


body, 



305—31=274—30=244—5 /; (31)=239— 7 b & // coI.= 232 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31j=239. 457—239= 

218+1=219 + 6 h col.=225. 225 

305—31=274—30=244—7 b& h col.=237. 237 

305—31=274—30=244—50 (76:1)=194. 498—194= " 

304+1=305. 305 

305—31=274—30=244. 498—244=254+1=255. 255 
305—31=274 (74:2)— 30=244— 50 (74:2)=194— 50 

(76:1)=144— 4 b &, h col.=140. 140 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31 )=239— 146=93 - 

3 b (146;=90— 5 b & /^=85. 85 



76:2 His 



76:2 


father 


76:2 


is 


76:1 


only 


76:1 


a 


77:2 


coster- 
monger's 



76:1 son, 



78o 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



305—31=274—248 (74:2)=26. 193—26=167+1= 
305—31=274—30=244—145=99. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239— 146=93— 

3 /, (146)=90. 498—90=408 + 1=409. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31 )=239— 50=189— 

3 h col.=186. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194. 
305—31=274—30=244—10 b col.=234. 
305—31=274—145=129—2 h col.=127. 
305-31=274—5 b (31)=269— 4 h col.=265. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 146=93— 3 /' 

(146)=90. 508—90=418+1=419+1 //=420. 
305—31=274—248 (74:2)=26. 
305 —31=274—50=224. 284—224=60 + 1 =61 . 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239— 146=93— 

3 /; {146)=90. 468—90=378 + 1=379. 
805-31=^274-10 b col.=264. 
305—31=274—30=244—7 b & ^=237. 
305—31=274—248=26. 193+26=219. 
305—31=274—5 b (31)=269— 15 b & h col. =254. 
305—31=274. 447—274=173+1=174. 
305—31=274—50=224. 284— 224=60+ 1=61 + 7 /^ col 
305—31=274. 284—274=10+1=11 + 18 b & h col.= 
305-31=274—248=26—22 b (248)=4. 
305—31=274—254=20 
305—31=274—145=129—50=79. 447—79=368+1 

=369. 
305—31=374—50=224. 

305—31=274—5 b (31)=269— 248=21. 193+21= 
305—31=274—50=224—193=31—15 /;& // (193)= 

16. 508—16=492+1=493. 





Page and 




Word. 


Column. 




168 


75:2 


who 


99 


76:2 


at 



409 



493 



70:1 present 



186 


76:1 


wrought 


194 


74:1 


at 


234 


74:1 


the 


127 


76:1 


trade 


265 


74:1 


of 


420 


75:2 


glove 


(26) 


74:1 


making; 


61 


74:1 


while 


379 


78:1 


his 


(264) 


76:1 


son 


237 


76:2 


is 


219 


75:1 


a 


254 


74:1 


crafty 


174 


75:1 


fellow, 


=68 


74:2 


who 


29 


74:1 


acts 


4 


74:1 


for 


20 


75:1 


a 


369 


75:1 


living 


224 


74:2 


on 


214 


75:2 


the 



r5:2 



stage. 



The reader will here observe t..at the whole of act 1 of this play of 2d Henry 
IV. is used as a basis for this wonderful Cipher, and the two ends of the act act 
and react on each other. Thus we find the fragments of 74:2, the beginning of 
scene second, as 50, 30, 198, 218, etc., used to modify the primal root-number, 523, 
thus: 523 — 218=305; and when we carry this 305 to the end of the act, in 79:1, 
and deduct the fragment of scene at the top of the column, containing 31 words, 
we get the 274 which has been telling the Cipher story through several pages. But 
this is not all. We take that 274, and again modify it by the fragments of 74:2, to 
obtain the 224 and 244, etc. (274 — 50=224 and 274 — 30=244), which so abundantly 
occur in the foregoing pages; and this again is modified by deducting the frag- 
ment of 76:1 (50), the beginning of the third scene of the act, producing the 174 and 
194 seen so often above. But even this does not end the marvelous interlocking 
of the beginning and the end of the act under the spell of the Cipher, for we see the 
count starting from the end ot the act (305—31=274), carried back to the beginning 
of the act; and there taken up the column to yield us acts, and taken through 74:2, 
to yield us making {'' glove-making"); and up 75:1 it gives us fi'lhiv, and down 74:1 
(274 — 5/'(3i)=269) it produces crafty; while 224(274 — 50^224), carried through 
the first section of 75:1, brings us to stage. 



SHAA'SPERE' S AKISTOCRA TIC PRETENSIONS. 781 

If the reader will turn back to page 729 he will find those words glove ina king- 
produced thus: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

516—167=340—22 d & //=327— 30=297— 193=104 

— 15^&/^=89. 508—89=419 + 1=420. 420 75:2 glove ^ 
516—167=349—22 b & 7^=327-50=277. 284—277 f- 

=7+1=8 + 18/' &// col.=26. (26) 74:1 making: J 

Now compare this with the example just given. Observe how an entirclj' dif- 
ferent primal number, modified by being carried to the end instead of the beginning 
of the act, is brought back to the same place and brings out the same words: 

523—218=305—31=274—30=244—5 /; (31)=239— 

146=93—3 /' (146)=90. 508—90=418+1=419 

+ 1// col.=420. 420 75:2 glove , 

523-218=305— 31=274— 248 (74 :2)=26. (26) 74:1 making f 

Now consider how exquisitely the skeleton of the text must have been adjusted 
to bring about these results: — in the first instance, the count goes forward to pro- 
duce the word glove, and the one hyphen is 7iot counted in; in the second case, the 
count comes from the end of the act and moves backward, and the one hyphen is 
counted in. The word inakiitg is obtained, in the one case, by going up column i 
of page 74, and counting in all the bracketed and hyphenated words; in the other 
case, the root-number comes from the end of the act, passes through 74:2, and goes 
do'cvn 74:1. Thus making fits to 274 down the column and to 277 up the column. 
But some one may think that glove and making are to be found everywhere, all 
through these Plays, and that therefore it is no trick at all to produce these wonder- 
ful arithmetical coordinations. My answer is that this is the only time "glove" is 
found in this play! And this is the only time " making" is found in this act. It is 
found but once besides in the play, in the fourth act, and once in the Epilogue. In 
other words, the gentlemen who may think all this to be accident would have to go 
thirty-six columns forward from 74:1 before they w'ould find another making to 
match t\\&\x glove, to produce the designation of the recognized trade of Shakspere's 
father. 

It is impossible to deny the accuracy of my arithmetic (occasional typograph- 
ical errors, of course, excepted), and it is impossible to deny that the facsimiles 
given herewith are faithful copies of the Folio of 1623; and it seems to me that 
all this hundred-fold accumulation of evidences must convince even the most skep- 
tical that there is a Cipher in the Shakespeare Plays. I am aware that my workman- 
ship is not complete, but it is approximately so; and my excuse will be, to all just- 
minded men, the incalculable diflSculties of the work. But it was fit and proper 
that the Cipher made by the greatest intellect that ever existed, and embodied in 
the greatest writings possessed by mankind, should be as marvelous as the source 
from which it came, or the vehicle in which it is carried. 

But this is not all — nor a tithe of all. The Bishop says that the aristocracy 
of the neighborhood fear that Shakspere's friends in London will secure him his 
coat-of-arms. 

305—31=274—50=224—163 (78:1)=61. 498—61= 

437+1=438. 438 76:1 friends 

305— 31=274— 5/'(31)=269+185(81:l)=454— 27/ col.=452 81:1 London 

And here I would call the reader's attention to the microscopic accuracy of this 



782 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



work. If he looks at column i of page 81 he would say it was solid: — he will see 
no stage directions of exits or entrances. But if he will look very closely at the 
185th word he will find this following it: 

Poin. Letter. John Ealstaffe Knight. 

Poiu. is the abbreviation of the name of Poins or Pointz, one of the characters; 
and " Sir John FalstafJe " is the opening part of the letter from Falstaff to the 
Prince; — for we read a little below, " Sir John Falstaffe Knight, to the son of the 
King .... greeting," etc. But what is /iV/c;-.'' It is not part of the letter. Nor 
does /"(?/;/ J- speak the word, for it is put in italics. It is a stage direction, meaning 
that Poins reads the letter. And on this little hook the author hangs his Cipher, 
for it breaks the column into two fragments. 

And they fear the " villain's" influence with the Queen because of the Plays 
he has written. And hence we have: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 



305—31=274—50=224—79 (73:1)=145. 518—145= 

373+1=374. 374 

305—31=274—50=224—79 (73:i)=145. 518—145= 

373+1=374+4 /^ col. =378. 878 79:1 



79:1 villain's 



Queen 



Here is another cunning piece of work. The Queen is disguised in Qiieane, — 
"a woman, a wench": 

Cut me off the villain's head; throw the Queane in the channel. 

And so they go on to tell the King of Arms that Shakspere never writ them; 
that he has not the wit or the imagination: 

305—31=274—30=244—5 l> ^31)=239. 458—239= 

219 + 1=220. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /' (31)=239— 146=93— 3 b 

(146)=90— 50=40— 1 h col. =39. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239— 146=93. 

468—93=375+1=376. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 146=93. 468—93 

=375+1=376+8/' col. =384. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 146=93. 468—93 

=375+1=376+9/' & h col. =385. 

And they express the opinion of Shakspere that- 

305—31=274—30=244—5 / (31)=239— 3 h col.= 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239. 458—289= 

219+1=220. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /' (31)=239— 50=189. 

489—189=309+1=310. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194. 508—194=314 

+ 1=315+8/1 & h col. =323. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 / (81)=289— 146=93— 3 /' 

(146)=90. 284—90=194+1=195. 
305— 31=274— 5^ (31)=269— 193=76. 
305— 3i=274r-30=244— 50=194— 22 ^ & h col. =172. 172 



220 


76:2 


Writ. 


39 


76:1 


Wit. 


376 


78:1 


The 


384 


78:1 


great 


385 


78:1 in 


laeinati 



236 


76:2 


He 


220 


76:1 


was 


310 


76:1 


but 


328 


75:2 


the 


195 


74:1 


first 


76 


75:2 


bringer 


172 


75:2 


of 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




377 


76:1 


them 


239 


76:2 


out 


94 


76:1 


on 


20 


74:1 


the 





269 


81:1 


Nearest 




274 


81:1 


of 




194 


81:1 


kin 


489- -239= 










251 


81:1 


fetch 


489—239 










253 


81:1 


from 




254 


81:1 


Japhet, 



SHAKSPERKS ARISTOCRA TIC PRE TENSIONS. 783 



305—31=274—5/' (31)=269— 50=219— 146=73. 449 

—73=376+1=377. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 h (31)=239— 145=94. 
305—31=274—254 (75:1)=20. 
305—31=274—254=20—4 h (254)=16. 508—16=492 

+ 1=493. 493 75:2 stage. 

I have not the time or space to work it all out. The aristocracy jest over poor 
Shakspere's pretensions of relationship to the blue blood of the county, and Sir 
Thomas says, in his letter to Sir William Dethick, that he is only connected with 
them through Japhet ! 

305—31=274—5 b (31)=269 

305—31=274. 

305—31=274—30=244—50=1 94. 

305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239. 
250+1=251. 

305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239. 

=250+1=251+2 //=253. 

305—31=274—20 b & h col. =254. 

I do not pretend to work out the sentence, but simply to jot down from my 
notes some of the principal words. If I followed the root-numbers into all their 
ramifications each chapter would grow into a book. 

And here I would call attention to another proof of the arithmetical adjustment 
of the text. I have just given the words, ' first bringer," thus: 

305—31=274—30=244—5 b (31)=239— 146=93— 3 /' 

(146)=90. 284—90=194+1=195. 195 74:1 First 

305— 31=274— 5 ,'' (31)=269— 193=76. 76 75:2 bringer. 

But after a while we will find Bacon expressing his fears that if Shakspere is 
■ taken prisoner he will say that he was not the author of the Plays, but simply the 
first bringer oi them out upon the stage. And the words come out from the primal 
root-number, 523. If we commence at the end of scene 2 (76:1) and count 
upward and then go backward and down the column, the 523d word is first; and if 
we commence again with 523 at the top of column i of page 75, and go down the 
column and down the next column, the 523d word is bringer ! Thus: 

523— 448=(^«f/&warrt') 75 75:2 First 

523— 447=(^;-u'fln/) 76 75:2 bringer. 

And it will be seen that the two words " first bringer " follow each other in the 
text. It would have been difficult to have placed first and bringer'm the same vicinity 
without connecting them; hence the length of column i of page 75 and the length of 
the fragment of scene on 76:1 had to be exactly adjusted to bring the two required 
words side by side. If there had been 448 words in 75:1, instead of 447, or 449 
words on 76:1, instead of 448, both counts would have fallen on the same words I 
I pity the man who can think all this was accidental. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SHAKSPERE'S SICKNESS. 

Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead ! 

2d Henry II '., //, 4, 

EVERY word of the first part of this chapter grows out of the root- 
number J2J — 2l8=joj, modified by deducting ji or J2, to-wit, the 
number of words in yp:! from the top of the column to the end of scene 4, 
act i, or to the beginning of scene i, act ii. The remainder of the chapter 
is derived from ^04 — i6y=jj8, and shows ho2v substantially the same 
story comes out of the same text by two different root-numbers. 

My publishers advise me that there are already S50 pages in 
type, and that I must condense the remainder of the Cipher story. 
I shall therefore be as brief as possible, and instead of giving a con- 
tinuous narrative I shall only give fragments of the story. 

We have two descriptions of Shakspere's sickness, one given 
by the Bishop of Worcester to Cecil, the other the narrative of 
Bacon himself, interjected into the story; the former is the briefer 
of the two. The first grows out of the root-number used in the 
last chapter, 523 — 218=305; the other from the root-number 505 — 
167=338, which gave us the story of Shakspere's youth, his quar- 
rel with Sir Thomas Lucy, the fight, etc. 

The Bishop says to Cecil, after describing Shakspere's intended 
house, his "plate" (591 79:2, 96 80:1); his "tapistry" (594 79:2, 
37 80:1); his " bed-hangins " (33 80:1), etc., that he will not live to 
enjoy his grandeur; that he will — 

Pagfe and 

Word. Column. 

305— 31=274— 5//(31)==269— 4//=col.=265. 265 78:2 never 

305—31=274—50=224. 462-224=238+1=239+ 

3/zcol.=342. 242 78:2 need 

305-31=274—4/^=270. 270 78:2 it 

305—31=274—50=224+32=256. 256 79:1 long. 

305_31_274_50=224— 5 ^=219—49 (76:1)=170— 

4/; col. =166. 166 76:2 He 

784 



SHAk'SPEHE'S SICKNESS. 



785 



Word. 

174 

209 



305—31=274—50=224—50 (76:1)=174. 
305-31=274—50=224—5/; (31)=219— 10 l> col.= 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /> (31)=219. 448—219= 

229+1--230. 
305—285 (31 79:1)=20— 2 h (285)=18. 468—18= 

450+1=451. 
305—193=112. 162+112=274. 
305—50=255—32=223. 577—223=354+1=355. 
305- -50=255. 

305-31=274—27 (73:1)=247. 
305-31=274-50 (79:1)=224— 5 /' (31) 219. 610- 

219=391 + 1=392. 
305—31=274—50=224—5/; (31)=219. 610-219= 

391 + 1=392+3=395. 
305—31=274—50=224. 610—224=386+1=387+ 

11 ^& A=398. 
305—31=274—50=224—5/' (31)=219. 610—219= 

391 + 1=392+11/; & //=403. 
305—31=274—50=224. 610—224=386+ 1=387+9 b=^ 396 
305—31=274—50=224. 253 

305— 32=273— 50=223— 5 /;=218— 50=168— 162= 

6. 610—6=604+1=605. 
305—31=274—50=224. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /=2] 8-50=1 68. 458— 

168=290-1-1=291. 291 

305—31=274—50=224. 610—224=386+1=387+ 

3 /^ col. =390. 390 

305— 32=273— 50=223— 5 /;=218— 50=168— 146= 

22— 3/;(146)=19. 577—19=558+1=559 + 1//= 560 



230 

451 
274 
355 
255 

247 

392 
395 



403 



605 
224 



Page and 
Column. 

76:2 

77:2 



78:1 
78:1 
77:1 
74:1 

78:2 



IS. 



hear, 

at 

present 

very 

sick; 

he 

repents, 

in 



77:2 sack-cloth 



77:2 
77:2 
78:1 



76:2 

77:2 
77:1 



and 

ashes, 

the 

lechery 
of 

his 

young 

days. 



The reader will observe how singularly the words match with the count. The 
root-number 305 — 31 (7q:i)=^274 — 5o(74:2)=224, carried up the column (77:2), count- 
ing in the bracketed words, yields ashes; but counting in both the bracketed and 
hyphenated words, itgives us sack-clotli. But it we count in, in that 31, the five words 
in brackets, then we have: 305 — 50^255 — 31=224 — 5 /' (3i)=2ig; and 219 taken up 
the same column gives us repents, and counting in the three hyphenated words 
alone it gives us /«, and counting both the bracketed and hyphenated words it 
gives us (iiid. Here we have repents in sack-cloth and ashes. But this is not all. 
The same root-number 224 carried up the same column, counting in the three 
hyphenated words, yields the \\'oxA. young; and the same root-number 255 modified 
by deducting 32 gives us, less 5 b (32), 218, and this carried to the beginning of the 
scene and brought backward and up 77:1 gives us days: — young days. 

And observe that the word lechery occurs only this once in this play, and not 
again in all the ten Histories. '\nd this is the only time repents is found in this 
play, and it does not appear again in all the Histories. And this is the only time sack- 
' cloth occurs in this play, and it is found but once more in all the Plays I I mention 
these facts for the benefit of those shallow intellects that think all words neces- 
sary for all sentences can be found anywhere. 

And then the Bishop goes on to speak again of Shakspere's wealth: 

305— 50=255— 32==223— 5 h (31)=218— 50=168. 458 

—168=290+1=291. 291 76:2 His 



786 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Page and 
Word. Column. 

305— 31==274— 50=224— 5^=219— 50=169— 146= 
300-31=274—50=224—5=219—50=169—146=23. 

318—23=295+ 1=296. 
305—31=274—50=224—50=174—146=28. 477— 

28=449+1=450. 
305—32=273—50=223-30=193+162=355. 
305—32=273—50=223—193 (75:1)=30. 448—30= 

418+1=419. 
305—31=274—193=81—15 b & //=66— 49=17. 603 

—17=586+1=587. 
305— 32=273— 50=223— 5/^=218— 50=168— 50 

(76:1)=118. 
305— 32=273— 30=243— 5 /'=238— 145=93— 

3 b col. =90. 
305—31=274—193=81. 448—81=367+1=368. 
305—31=274—50=224—193=31 . 
305—32=273—50=223—5/^=218—146=72+163= 

235— 5/' col. =230. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 ^=2 1 8—50= 1 68—50= 

118. 603—118=485+1=486. 



23 


78:1 


purse 


296 


79:1 


is 


450 


77.1 


well 


355 


78:1 


lined 


419 


76:1 


with 


587 


76:2 


the 


118 


76:2 


gold 


90 


76:1 


he 


368 


70:1 


derives 


31 


76:1 


from 


230 


78:1 


the 


486 


76:2 


Plays. 



The Bishop admits they are popular: 

305—31=274—50=224—5 /;=219-50=169— 146= 
30.5— 32=273— 50=223— 5 /'=21 8— -50=168-50= 
305—31=274—50=224—50=174—145=29—5 /' col 
305— 31=274— 50=224— 5 /;=21 9—50= 1 69— 1 46 

=23. 468—23=445 + 1=446. 
305-31=274—50=224—50=174—161=13. 462— 

13=449 + 1=450. 
305—31=274—50=224. 

305—32=273—50=223—30=193—162=31—1 h col.= 
305—32=273—50=223—50=173. 
305—32=273—50=223—5-^=218—50=168—146= 

22—3 b (146)=19. 
305—32=273—50=223—5=218—146=72. 
305—32=273—50=223—5-^=218—50=168—163=5. 

462—5=457+1=458. 
305-32=273-50=223-50=173—50 (76:1)=123. 
305—31=274—193=81—15 h & // (193)=66. 458— 

60=392+1=393. 
305— 31 =274— 50=224— 5=2 1 9— 50=1 69 +162= 
305—31=274—50=224—50=174—146=28. 468— 

28=440+1=441. 
305—31=274—193=81—49 (76:1)=32 
305—31=274—30=244. 468— 244=224^ 1=225. 
305— 31 =274— 30=244 + 1 62=406. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 b & //=2] 8— 50(76:1)= 

l,i8— 145=23 + 163=186. 
305—31=274—50=224—50=174—146=28-3 /> (146)= 



23 


77:1 


The 


118 


78:1 


Plays 


24 


79:1 


are 



446 



78:1 



much 



450 


78:2 


admired,. 


224 


79:2 


and 


= 30 


78:2 


draw 


173 


78:1 


great 


19 


79:1 


numbers^ 


72 


77:1 


and 


458 


78:2 


yield 


123 


78:1 


great 


393 


70:2 


abundance: 


331 


78:1 


of 


441 


78:1 


fruit, 


32 


76:2 


in 


225 


78:1 


the 


406 


7S:1 


forms 


186 


78:1 


of 


= 25 


78:1 


groats 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




'4—3 b (145) 






.-)07 


77;1 


and 


:28. 28 


78:1 


pence 



SHAKSPERKS SICKXESS. 787 



305—50=255—31=224—5=219—145= 

=71. 577—71=50(1 + 1=507. 
305—50=255—31=224—50=174—146= 

Observe here how plays comes out twice by the same number, once as please 
(plase), 118 up 76:2, and the second time 2.?, plays, 118 down 78:1. And note how 
cunningly the word is worked in the second time: " For the one or the other /Ayj- 
the rogue with my great toe." 

Observe also how the same numbers bring out purse — i:;old — alutndanee — 
groats — pciiee- — luiieh — admired — draiv — great — numbers, ft\.z., just as we saw 
another number bringing out of these same pages slices, stiu-kings, cloak, slops, 
smock, cap; in fact, a whole \yardrobe. This is the only time groats occurs in this 
play. It is found but four other times in all the Plays. And this is the only time 
pence occurs in this play. It is found but five other times in all the Plays. Purse 
occurs but four times in this play. Xhis is the only time admired appears in either 
1st or 2d Henry II'.; and this is the only time numbers is found in this act. 
Abundance occurs but twice in this play, and but eight other times in all the Plays. 
I should be sorry, for the credit of human intelligence, that any man could be 
found who would think that all these unusual words — rare on a thousand pages — 
have concurred arithmetically on two or three pages by accident. 

And the aristocracy are in dread of the wealthy pai-venu absorbing the territory 
around him. The Bishop says: 

305—50=255—31=224. 610—224=386+1=387. 
805—50=225—31=224—5 b (31)=219— 50=169- 

146=23. 318—23=295 + 1=296. 
305- 50=255—31=224—50=174—146=28—3 b 

(148)=25. 318—25=293+1=294 
305—50=255—32=223-5 /;=2 1 8—50=1 68—50 

(76:1)=118. 603—118=485+1=486 + 3 b col.= 
305—50=255—32=223—5 /;=218— 50=1 68—146= 

22—3 b (146)=19 + 31=50. 
305—50=255—32=223-5 /; (32)=218— 50 (76:1)= 

168. 603—168=435 + 1=436. 
305—50=255—32=223—5=218—50=168—148= 

22—3 /; (146)=19 + 162=181. 
305—32=273. 610-278=337+1=338+12 /' & //= 
305—31=274—193=81—15 b & //=66. 448—66= 

382+1=383. 383 76:1 land 

305—50=255—31=224—5 /- (31)=219— 49 (76:1)= 

170—5 b & //=165. 
305—50=255—31=224—5/' (31)=219-49 (76)= 
305—50=255—31=224—5 b (31)=219. 610—219= 

391 + 1=392 + 9/^ col. =401. 
305—50=255—31=224—5 /^ (31)=219— 50 (76:1)= 

169—146=23. 518—23=495+1=496. 

And note this groupof words: bu} all — land — appertinent — to — jVeiu Place. 

How lawyer-like is the language. Appertinent occurs but once in this play and/'///' 
twice besides in all the Plays I Yet here it coheres arithmetically with buy — land — 
New Place. And this is the only time buy and land a.ve found in this act, and buy 



387 


77:2 


It 


296 


79:1 


is 


294 


79:1 


thought. 


489 


76:2 


he 


50 


79:1 


will 


436 


76:2 


buy- 


181 


78:1 


all 


350 


77:2 


the 



165 


77:2 


appertinent 


170 


76:2 


to 


."1^ 

-»-•-/-.- 


77:2 


New J 


496 


79:1 


Place. ) 



788 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 





Page and 




Word. 


Column. 




311 


78:1 


We 


69 


78:2 


know 


402 


81:2 


him 


31 


77:2 


as 


22 


81:2 


a 


219 


78:2 


butcher's 


372 


72:2 


rude 



occurs but once besides in the whole play. And this is the first time place appears 
in eighteen columns of the Folio — since ist Henry IV., act 5, scene i. 

And the Bishop expresses the opinion of his friends, the gentlemen around 
Stratford, that the village boy they had known so well as a poacher could not have 
written these "much admired plays." 



305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=218— 50 (76:1)=168. 

468—168=300 + 1=301 + 10 b col. =311. 
305—31=274—30=244—162=82—13 h&h col.= 
305— 32=273— 50=223— 5 /;=218— 50=168— 146= 

22-3 b (146)=19. 420—19=401 + 1=402. 
305—32=273—50=223—30=193—162=3]. 
305—32=273—50=223—5^=218—50=168—146= 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /^=219. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /^=239. 610—239=371 

+ 1=372. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /'=219— 50 (76:1)=169— 

146=23. 162—23=139+1=140. 
305—31=274—30=244—162=82. 462—82=380+ 

1=381 + 5 /!i col. =386. 
505—32=273—50=223—5 Z'=218— 50 (76:1)=168— 4 

b & h col. =164. 
1305—31=274-50=224. 
.305—32=273—50=223- 

118. 162—118=44- 
.-305-32=273-50=223- 

103_345 + i=346. 

-305—31=274—193=81—49 (76:1)= 
305—31=274—50=224—5 ^^=219- 

169—146=23—5 b col.=18. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /;=219- 

23+162=185. 
305— 32=273— 50=223— 50=1 73 + 1 62=335 . 
.30.5—31=274—80=244+162=406—2 // col.=404. 
-50=223—193 (75:1)=30. 462—30 



-5 /;=218- 

+-1=45. 

-50=173- 



-50=168—50= 
■50=123. 468- 

=32. 

-50 (76:1)= 

-50=169-146= 



140 



164 
224 

45 

346 
32 

18 



78:1 



and 



78:2 vulgar 



81:2 

78:2 

78:1 

78:1 
76:2 

79:1 



'prentice, 
and 

it 

was, 
in 

our 



432+1=433. 



457+32= 



;305— 31=274— 193=81— 49 (70:1)=32 
305—31=274—50=224—4 b col. =220. 
.305— 32=273— 50=223— 5 /'=218— 146=72. 

72=376 + 1=377. 
:305— 31=274— 193 (75:1)=81— 50 (76:1)=31 

31=489. 
:305— 31-=274— 254 (75:1)=20. 
,305— 32=273— 50=223— 5 /;=218—50=ie 

—\k col. =116. 
305-31=274—193=81-50=31. 
305—31=274—254=20—15 /' & /^=5. 448- 
305—31=274-50=224—5=219—50=169 

=119. 577—119=458+1=459+11 ^=470. 
305—32=273—50=223. 
305—3 1 =274— 30=244— 50=1 94— 1 62^ 



185 


78:1 


opinions, 


335 


78:1 


not 


404 


78:1 


likely 


433 


78:2 


that 


489 


76:2 


he 


220 


76:2 


writ 



448- 



458+ 






76:1 them; 



489 


76:2 


he 


20 


78:1 


is 


3_5]=117 






116 


76:2 


neither 


31 


76.2 


witty 


5=443+1- -444 


76:1 


nor 


-50 (76:1) 






=470. 470 


77:1 


learned 


223 


78:1 


enough. 


32 


78:2 


The 



SI/AA'SPEHE'S SICKNESS. 



789 





Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




3^(145)= 


= 26 


79:1 


subjects 




74 


79:1 


are 


=160. 










309 


78:1 


far 




111 


78:2 


beyond 




112 


78:2 


his 


=169 










24 


78:2 


ability. 


-50—118 










116 


78:2 


It 


=169— 










296 


79:1 


is 


■1 // col.= 


= 27 


81:2 


even 


3/; (146) 










293 


79:1 


thought 


32=^ 


64 


79:1 


here 


489 










328 


81:1 


that 


317= 


345 


79:1 


your 


610 










579 


77:2 


cousin 


-145= 


24 


81:2 


of 




107 


81:2 


St. Albans 




185 


81 il 


writes 




194 


82:1 


them. 



305—31=274—50=224—50=174—145=29— 
305— 31=274— 50=224— 5 /;=219— 145=74. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=218-58 (80: 1)= 

468—160=308+1=309. 
305—32=273—162=111. 
305—31=274—162=112. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /;=219— 50 (76:1)= 

—145=24. 
305— 32=273— 50=223— 5 /;=218— 50=168- 

—2k col. =116. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /'=219— 50 (": 6:1)= 

146=23. 318—23=295 + 1=296. 
305—31=274—50=224—50=174—146=28— 
305—31=274—50=224—50=174—146=28— 

=25. 317—25=292+1=293. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194—162=32+ 
305—32=273—50=223—5/^=218—50=168. 

168=321 + 1=322+1 k col. =323. 
305—31=274—50=224—50^174—146=28+ 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194—162=32. 

32=578+1=579. 
30.5—31=274—50=224—5/^=219—50=169- 
305—31=274—5 (^=269—162=107. 
305— 32=273— 50=233— 38 (80:1)=185. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194. 

This is the only time cousin appears in this act, and the only time .SV. A/hans is 
found in this play; and this is the only time -ivrites occurs in this play; and tl';// is 
found but twice in this play; yet here in the same sentence we have 7orit and -icr/'/i-s, 
cousin and St. Albans, all united by the same number. This is also the only time 
witty occurs in this play; it is found but fourteen times besides /;/ all the Plays. 
It does not appear in King John, Richard II., ist Henry IV., or Henry J\ The last 
time it appears, previously to this instance, is in the Comedy of Errors, iii, i, 289 
pages or 57S columns distant ! Learned is found but two other times in this play. 
Opinions appears but once besides in this play, and but ten times in all the Plays. 
And this is the only time that €\X\i^'C butcher or vulgar or 'prentice occurs in this 
play; and 'prentice is only found three ti/nes in the thousatid pages 0/ the I olio; and 
holh butcher and 7.'i/lgar are^ comparatively rare words in the Plays. And bu/i her 
is 305^31^274 — 50=224 — 5=2ig; and 'prentice is 305 — 32=273 — 50=223 — 5/'^ 
21S less 50. That is to say, one commences to count from the last word of the first 
section of 79:1, and the other from the first word of the next section. And this 
is the only time ability is found in this play, or in all the ten Histories; and it only 
occurs nine times besides in all the Plays. 

If all this be accident, surely it is the most marvelous piece of accidental work 
in the world. 

And then the Bishop recurs to Shakspere's health. He thinks that if Shakspere 
is brought before the Council to answer for his offense, he is so enfeebled by disease 
that the fear of the rack will compel him to tell all he knows about the authorship 
of the Plays. 

305—31=274—30=244—50=194—162=32. 457+32=489 76:2 He 



79° 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



305— 31=274— 145=129— 2^ col.=127. 
305—31=274—50=224—146=78. 610—78=532-^1 

=533+2// col =535. 
305—31=274—5 ^=269. 518—269=249+1=250+ 

6// col. =256. 



\Vord. 

127 
535 
256 



Page and 
Column. 



77:2 



79:1 



cannot 

last 

long. 



Observe how cunningly long is made the 224th word from the beginning of act 
ii, scene i, and the 274th word from the end of the same column: 



305—31=274—50=224 + 32=256 . 
305—31=274—5 h (31 , =269. 518—269=249-^1 
250+6// col. =256. 



And this 250 is answer 
Council- 



256 79:1 long 

256 79:1 long 

brought to answer before the Council. And here is 



=274—50=224—50=174—146=28. 449— 

28=421+1=422. 422 

305- 31=274—50=224—146=78. 448—78=370 

+ 1=371. 
305-32=273—50=223—7 h col.=216. 
305—32=273—50=223—146=77—3 1> (146)=74. 

577—74=503 + 1=504. 
305—32=273—50=223—145=78—3 l> (145;=75. 

577—75=502+1=503+2// col. =505. 
305-32=273—50=223—50 (76:1)=173. 577—173 

404+1=405.' 
305—31=274—50=224—145=79—5 l> & h col. =74. 
305—32=273—162 (78:1)=U1. 
305—32=273—50=223—50 (76:1)=173, 577—173 

=404+1=405 + 3 // col.=408. 
305—31=274—50=224—145=79—2 // col.=77. 
305—32=273—50=223—145=78. 
305—31=274—162=112. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 ^=239—146=93. 577— 

93=484+1=485. 
305—31=274. 

305—32=273—50=223—5 //=218. 
305—31=274—254 (75:1)=20— 15 b & // (254)=5. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 b (32)==218. 462—218= 

244+1=245. 
305—31=274—50=224. 577—224=353+1=354+ 

11 b col. =-365. 
305—31=274—50=224. G 1 0—224=386 + 1 =387 + 

2 //=389. 
305—31=274—162 (78:1)=112. 
305—31=274—162=112. 318—112=206+1=207 

+ 1 //=208. 
305—31=274—145=129—3 b (145)=126. 
305—31=274—162=112. 162—112=50+1=51. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 b (32)=218. 577—218= 

359+1=360+11 /'col.=371. 371 



76.-1 



Council. 



371 


76:1 


His 


216 


77:1 


health 


504 


77:1 


is 


505 


77:1 


very 


405 


77:1 


poor; 


74 


76:1 


it 


111 


76:1 


was 


408 


77:1 


my 


77 


76:1 


presurmise 


78 


76:1 


that 


112 


79:1 


he 


485 


77:1 


is 


274 


77:2 


blasted 


218 


78:1 


with 


5 


76:1 


that 


245 


78:2 


dreaded 


365 


77:1 


disease, 


389 


77:2 


the 


112 


78:1 




208 


79:1 . 


a 


126 


76:1 


most 


51 


78:1 


incurable 



77:1 malady. 



SHAKSPERKS SICKNESS. 



791 



tVord. 


Pagre and 
Column. 




355 


76:1 


His 


111 


77:2 


looks 


440 


78:1 


prove 


387 


77:3 


it. 



305—31=374—80=244—5 ^=239—145=94. 448- 
94=3.-)4 + 1=3,55. 

305—32=273—1 62=1 1 1 . 

305— 31=274— 50=224— 50 (76:1)=174— 145=29. 

468—29=439+1=440. 
305-31=274—50=234. 610-224=386 + 1=387. 

Observe the cunning of this workmanship. The name of Shakspere's disease 
is the Ii2th word down the fragment of scene 3, in 78:1, and incurable is the 112th 
word up the same. After a while we will see this reversed, incurable answering to 
a Cipher number (51) down the column, and the other word answering to the same 
number up from the end of the scene. Let the reader try the experiment, and he 
will see herein another of the ten thousand evidences of arithmetical adjustment 
in the text. 

This is the only time incurable occurs in this play, and it is found but three 
other times in all the Plays ! And this is the only time malady appears in this 
play; and it occurs but twice besides in all the ten Histories, and but eight other 
times in all the Plays ! 



305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 57 (80:1)=182 

—11 b col.=171. 171 

30.5—31=274—162=112. 610—112=498+1=499. 499 

305—32=373—50=223—5=218—58 (80:1)=160. 160 



305- 
305- 



-31= 



-50=334—5 /'=319— 163=57— 3 // col.= 55 



-31=374—30=344—5 ^'=339. 317—339=78 + 

1=79 + 5 /'& //=84. 
305—31=374—50=234+185=409—16 /' col.=393. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 ^=218—58 (80:1)=160— 

10 b & h col. =150. 
305—31=274—30=344—5 <^=239 

+ 1=79. 
305- 31=274—30=244—50=194- 

461—136=325 + 1=326. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /;=219. 

+ 1=120. 
305—31=274-30=244. 598—244^ 
305—31=274—30=244—5 h (31)=239 

3,39+1=360+9 b col. =369. 
305—32=273—30=243—5 //=238. 

+ 1=361+9 /> col. =370. 
305-32=273—30=343—5 //=238. 

+ 1=361 + 10/^ &//=371. 
30.5—31=274—30=244—145=99. 
305—31=274—30=244. 
305—31=274—50=224 4- 185=409. 
30,5—31=274—50=224—58 (80:1)=166— 10 /' 
305—32=373—30=343. 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /; (31)=239. 598— 239^ 

3,59 + 1=360. 
305— 31 --274— 30=244-5 b (31)=239 
30,5—31=274—162=112+31=143. 



84 
393 

150 

79 

326 

120 
355 

369 

370 



317—239=78 

-58(80:1)=136. 

338—219=119 

354+1=3,55. 
598—239= 

598—238=360 

598—338=360 

371 

448—99=349 + 1=350 
244 
409 
156 
243 

360 
239 
143 



456 



90:2 

77:2 
80:1 

77:2 

79:1 
81:1 

80:1 

79:1 

80:1 

80:1 
79:2 

79:2 

79:2 

79:2 
76:1 
79:1 
81:1 
80:3 
78:2 

79:2 
79.1 
79:1 



One 

day 

I 
did 

chance 
to 

meet 

him, 

and, 

although 
I 

am 

well 

acquainted 

with 

him, 

I 

would 

not 

have 

known 

him. 



792 



THE CIPHER XAKRATIVE. 



305—31=274—50=224—5 ^=219. 598—219=379 

+ 1=380. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 ^=218—50=168—1 />= 
305—33=273—50=223—5 <5=218— 58 (80:1)=160— 

4 /; & /^=156. 
305—31=374—30=244-162=82. 462—82=380+ 

1 + 4/, & //=385. 
305—31=274—30=244—5=239—234 (81:2)=5— 3 // 

(234)=2. 338-2=336 + 1=337. 



Word. 

380 
167 

156 

385 
337 



Page and 
Column. 



79:2 the 

81=2 transformatioa 



81:3 
78:2 
80:1 



wras 



so 



great. 



This is the only time transfonnation appears in this play, and it is found but 
six other times in all the Plays. 

Then the Bishop goes on to tell the conversation he had with Shakspere. He 
beseeches his "worshipful Lordship" to go to his father's house, to see his 
father, who was lying sick. 



160 



80:3 



father's 



110 


78:3 


house; 


166 


80:3 


is 


161 


80:3 


lying 


163 


80:3 


sick. 



305—32=273—50=323—5 ^=318—58 (80:1)= 
305—32=273—50=223—5 ^=218—58 (80:1)=160- 

50=110. 
305—31=274—50=324—58=166. 
305—31=274—50=224—5^=319—58=161. 
305—31=274—50=224—58=166—3 // col. =163. 



John Shakspere died about four years after the events here related. 

I give these fragments because I have not the space to tell the whole story, 
and I give the more significant words to show the reader that I am not drawing on 
my imagination. 

And the Bishop is invited to supper. Shakspere says: 

305—33=373-50 (74:3)=223— 5 /; (32)=218— 50 (76:1) 

=168. 396—168=228+1=229. 
305—31=274—30=244-50=194. 
305—32=273—50=223—5=318—50=168. 396— 

168=228+1=229+2/^ col.=231. 
305— 33=373— 30=243— 57 (80:1)=186. 
305—32=273-30=343—5^ (31)=238— 145 (76:2)=93. 

338—93=345 + 1=346. 
305—33=373—30=343—5 /;=338— 145=93— 57 (80:1) 

=36. 523—36=487+1=488+4/. & // col.= 
305—31=274—30=244. 338—244=94+1=95. 
305—31=274—30=344. 396—344=153 + 1=153. 
305—33=373—30=343—5 /;=238— 145=93. 838— 

93=245+1=246 + 3/' col.=348. 



805- 



=373—30=243—5 /;=238— 145=93— 3 l> (145) 



-32 

=90. 338—90=248+1=249. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=318- 
305—31=374—30=244—50=194. 
305—33=373—30=243—50=193. 
305—32=373—30=243-50=193. 
30,5—31=274—80=244—50=194. 
305—31=274—30=244—50=194—14/' & // col.= 



-.58 (80: r =160. 
338-194=144 + 1= 

338-193=145+1= 



229 


80:1 


Come, 


194 


80:3 


go 


'^31 


80:1 


along, 


186 


81:3 


I 


246 


80:1 


entreat. 


492 


80:1 


you. 


95 


80:1 


to 


153 


80:1 


supper 


248 


80:1 


with 


249 


80:1 


me; 


160 


80:1 


I 


=145 


80:1 


will 


193 


81:3 


give 


=146 


80:1 


you 


194 


81 :2 


an 


180 


80:1 


excellent 



SHA KSPERE' S SICKNESS. 



79^ 



305—32=273—50=223—5 A=218— 50 (76:1)=168— 
62 (80:2)=10U. 489—100=383 + 1=384. 

305—32=273—30=243—50=193—13/; & h col.= 

305—32=213—50=223—5 /;=218— 58 (80:1)=160. 
523—1 60=363 + 1=364. 

305—31=274—30=244—50=194. 396—194=202 + 
1=203+2/' col. =205. 



305—31=274—50=224—185 (81:1)=39. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=218— 58=160— 14 /' & // 

col. =146. 
305—31=274—30=244—3/^ col.=C41 
305—31=274—80=244—50=194—10 b col. =184. 
305—31=274—30=244. 
305— 32=273— 30=243— 5 /;=238— 145=93— 57 

(80:1)=36— 2/^col.=34. 
305—31=274—30=244—5=239—145=94—3 b (145) 

=91. 489—91=398+1=399. 
305—32=273—30=243. 523—243=280+1=281. 
305—32=273—30=243—58 (80:1)=185. 462—185 

=277+1=278. 



Word. 


Pafje and 
Column. 




384 


81:1 


sack, 


(180) 


80:1 


my 


364 


80:2 


worshipful 


205 


80:1 


Lord. 


)!! during supper 




39 


81:2 


We 


146 


80:2 


talk 


241 


80:2 


upon 


184 


80:1 


the 


244 


80:2 


Gubject 



34 

399 

281 

278 



80:2 

81:1 
80:2 

80:3 



of 

his 
sick 

father. 



Entreat appears but twice in this play — here and in the Epilogue. Supper 
occurs four other times in this play — where Percy describes the supper at Shak- 
spere's house. This is the only time excelloit appears in this scene. It is not found 
at all in King John or Richard IE This is the only time .vw/y'ivV occurs in this act. 
Worshipful is found but five other times in all the Plays. This is the only time 
talk occurs in this act. 

I need hardly explain that sack was a kind of Spanish wine, something like our 
sherry. 

And Shakspere professes great love for his father; but the Bishop thinks he is 
a blessed hypocrite: 

305—31=274—30=244—50=194. 523—194=329+1=330 
305-31=274—50=224—5 /'=219— 50 (76:1)=169. 

523— 169=-354+ 1=355+3 b col. =357. 357 

And that he is trying to make use of him, the Bishop: 

305—31=274—30=244—57=187. 528—187=336+1=337 
305—31=374—50=224+185=409—16// col. =393. 393 
305—31=274—50=324—5 /;=219 + 185 (81:1)=404 

—16^ col. =388. 388 

305—31=374—50=334—5=319+185=404. 404 

30.5—31=374—30=244—5=239—57=182. 598— 

182=416+1=417. 417 

305—32=273- -30=243—5 /;=238— 145=93— 3 1> 1145) 

=90—58 (80:1)=33. 32 

And that he has taken advantage of his father's sickness to ingratiate himself 
with him, the Bishop, in the hope of making his way among the aristocracy. And 
the Bishop concludes he will let him think so: 



80:3 


blessed 


80:2 


hypocrite 


80:2 


Thinks 


81:1 


to 


81:1 


make 


81:1 


use 


79:3 


of 


80:3 


me. 





391 


80:2 


I 


523- 










387 


80:2 


am 


523— 










388 


80:2 


well 


523— 










389 


80:2 


spoken 


523— 










390 


80:2 


of. 



794 THE CIPHER NA RRA TI I 'A. 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

^05—31=274. 610- 274=336+l=337+9/'col.= 346 77:2 Let 

305— 31=274— 30=244— 5.:'=239—18/'col. 221 81:1 him 
305-31=274—30=244-50=1^)4. 523—194=329+ 

1=330 + 3// col =333. 333 80:2 think 

305— 31=374-30=244— 5/^=239 + 185 (81 :1)=424. 424 81:1 so. 

And Shakspere assures the Bishop that he himself stands high as a gentleman- 

305-31=274—30=244—50=194—57=137. 523— 

137=386+1=387+4 / & h col. =391. 
305—31=274— 30=244— 50=194— 57=137. 

137=386+1=387. 
305—32=273—30=243—50=193—57=136. 

136=387+1=388. 
305—31=274+30=244—50=194—57=137. 

137=386+1=387+2 /;=389. 
305—32=273—30=243—50=193—07=136. 

136=387 + 1=388+2 /=390. 

And the Bishop gives a rapturous description of the sweet looks and good breed- 
ing of Shakspere's daughter, Susanna; her loiv curtesy and her gentle accents; but we 
will find this hereafter given more fully by another party — by Percy when he visits 
Stratford. 

And the Bishop examines Shakspere during this interview and thus describes 
his appearance: 

305—31=274—30=244—162=82. 462—82=380+1= 
305—32=273—30=243—5^=238—27 /' col. =211. 
30,-.— 31=274— 30=244— 5 ^=239. 
.305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=218— 58 (80:1)=160— 

5/' col. =155. 
30.5—31=274. 
305—32=273—30=243—5 /' (32)=238. 534—238= 

296 + 1=297+2 // c.v.=299. 
305—32=273—30=243—27 b col. =216. 

Shakspere was born about April 23d, 1564; consequently in 1597, which I sup- 
pose to be the date of the events described in the Cipher story, he was just thirty- 
three years old. Observe that this three is a different one from the ///;-(V employed to 
tell of the division of the profits of the Plays into three parts: this three is the 216th 
word in 78:2; while the other was the I92d word in the same column. There are 
only three tlirees in act i of the Folio, — in sixteen columns, — and here we have two 
of them within four lines of each other. Thirty occurs but eleven times in all the 
Histories, and three times in this play; and this is the first time we come across it 
in this play, and we will have to go eight columns forward, or twenty-four back- 
ward, before we find it again. If there is no Cipher here, surely it is marvelous 
to find the words necessary to tell Shakspere's age coming together, separated only 
by one column, and each one growing out of the same formula: 305—32=273 — 
30=243. 

30.5—31=274—50=224—5 /;=219— 50=169— 4 b col. =165 76:2 yet 

305—31=274—30=244. 610—244=366+1=367. 367 77:2 he 

505—32=273—5 /;=268— 10 /' col.=258. 258 77:2 is, 



381 


78:2 


He 


211 


78:2 


is 


239 


77:2 


not 


155 


80:1 


more 


274 


81:2 


than 


299 


79:2 


thirty 


216 


78:2 


three, 



S//AA'Sr£A'£' S S/CA-A'£SS. 



795 



i). 



305—31=274—30=344—5 /; (31)=239. 
305—31=274. 

305—32=273—30=243—5 /'=238— 13 /> & //=22 
305— 32=2'5'3— 30=243— 5 d (32)=238— 10 /> col.= 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 10 /> col.=229. 
305—32=273—30=243—13 /- & //=col.=230. 
305—31=274—30=244—13/' & /■ col =231. 
305—31=274—50=224—5=219—58 (80:l)=lf)] . 
305_31=o;4_5o=224— 50=174— 4 /^ col. =170. 
305—31=274—30=244—10 ^> col. =234. 
305—31=274—50=224. 

305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 3 // col. =236. 
305—32=273—50=223—50=173—1 // col. =172. 
.305—32=273—50=223—5=218—50 {7G:1)=1 68— 

4 /; col. =164. 
305— 31=274— 50=224— 50 (76:1)=174. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 A='^19— 145=74— 3 /> (145) 

=71—2 // col. =69. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /<=218— 50=1 68— 

5 d & //=163. 
305—31=274—13 d & h col. =261. 
.305—32=273—50=223. 
305—31=274—50 (76:1)=224. 
305—32=273—28 (73:1)=245. 
305— 31=274— 3( '=244. 

305—31=274—3(1=244—146=98—2 // col. =96. 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /'=218— 146=72— 2 // col.= 
4J05— 31=274— 30=244— 5 /;=239— 145=94— 3 /' (145) 



=330+7 /'& h col. =337. 
=239—145=94. 420— 



r3:l)=l 64 + 162=326 



=91. 420— 91 =329 -hi = 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /'= 

94=326+1=327. 
305—32=273—30=243—79 

—9 b & //=317. 
4505—31=274—50=224—5 /.=219— 50 (76:i:=169. 

468—169=299 + 1=300. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /'=219— 50 (76:1)=169. 
.305—31=274—30=244—5 /'=239— 145=94. 448— 

94=354+1=355. 
305— 31=274— 50=224— 5 /;=219— 146=73. 
305-32=273—50=223-10 b col. =213. 
,305—32=273—30=243—5=238—145=93—3 /' (145) 

=90. 420—90=330+1=331 + 1 h col. =332 
305—32=273—30=243—5=238—145=93—3 /' (145)= 
305—31=274—30=244—5 /- (31)=239— 145=94— 3 

h (145)=91. 

I regret to set forth these facts concerning Shakspere's sickness. They are 
much worse than even the most earnest Baconian had suspected. And yet this 
statement is not in itself improbable. If any class were especially liable to the 
dreaded social scourge it would appear to be the poor actors of that age, who, by 





Page and 




Word. 


Column. 




239 


78:2 


in 


274 


78:2 


his 


225 


77:2 


youth, 


228 


77:2 


written 


229 


77:2 


down 


230 


77:2 


old 


231 


77:2 


with 


161 


77:2 


all 


170 


78:2 


the 


234 


77:2 


characters 


224 


77:2 


of 


230 


77:2 


age. 


172 


76:2 


His 


164 


76:2 


cheek 


174 


76:2 


is 


69 


77:2 


white, 


163 


76:2 


his 


261 


77:2 


voice 


223 


78:2 


hollow, 


224 


76:2 


his 


245 


77:2 


hand 


244 


77:2 


dry. 


96 


< ( -.1 


his 


= 70 


77:2 


hair 


337 


81:2 


grey, 


327 


81:2 


his 


317 


78:1 


step 


300 


78:1 


feeble; 


169 


78:1 


and 


355 


76:1 


his 


73 


76:1 


head 


213 


77:2 


wags 


332 


81:2 


as 


= 90 


76:1 


he 


91 


76:1 


walked. 



796 rilE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

law were " vassals" and " vagabonds," and who were necessarily surrounded by all 
the temptations incident to their mode of life; their theaters being the favorite re- 
sort for all the vicious of both sexes in the great city. I have already quoted what 
Taine says: 

It was a sad trade, degraded in all ages by the contrasts and the falsehoods 
which it allows. 

Only in the justice and sweetness of our modern civilization has it risen to the 
dignity which it deserves; and the future will accord it an even higher standing, for 
the pleasure and the benefit which it can afford to mankind. As an instrument of 
good it has, as yet, been but partially developed. 

We know, also, that .Shakspere's contemporary, George Peele, actor and piay- 
writer, died of that same " shameful disease." ' And we can see in the Cipher 
statement an explanation of Shakspere's early death. He left the world at the age 
of fifty-two; at a time when he should have been in the meridian of his mental and 
the perfection of his physical powers. This will also explain his early retirement to 
Stratford, and the little we know of his personal history, it being probable that he 
spent much of his time, in the latter part of his life, in Warwickshire. In 1604 we 
find him suing Philip Rogers at Stratford for ;^i. 15s. lod. for malt sold. In 1608 
he is sponsor for William Walker, at Stratford. In i6og he sues John Adden- 
brooke, at Stratford. It is also probable that Bacon desired to keep Shakspere out 
of sight, and therefore out of London, as much as possible, so as to avoid the keen 
eyes of his critical enemies: — for "he had been wronged by bruits before;" 
and the Cipher shows that it was shrewdly suspected that the man of Stratford had 
not the ability to write the Plays. 

And this may also explain why it was that Shakspere acted parts that required 
no particular action, such as the Ghost in Hamlet, or the old man, Adam, in As 
You Liki' It. One of his younger brothers, according to Oldys, - described him as: 

Acting a part in one of his own comedies, wherein, being to personate a 
decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak, that he was forced 
to be supported and carried by another person to a table. 

And the reader cannot help but note this wonderful array of words descriptive 
of sickness brought out by the same modifications of the same root-number. 
Observe how the bracketed and hyphenated words in 77:2 are employed, in con- 
junction with the five bracketed words in 31, 79:1, to bring out the striking sen- 
tence: "He is written down old with all the characters of age." We have also the 
word ///j- repeated six times, and always making its appearance in the proper place 
in the text. There are whole columns of the play where his cannot be found, but 
here they are in abundance when required. Characters appears but once in this play, 
and but twice besides in all the ten Histories; -written occurs but once in this play, 
and but four times besides in all the ten Histories. Hollow is found but three times 
in this play and but once in this act Wags occurs but this time in this play, and 
but twice besides in all the Plays ! This is the only time step appears in this play. 
And this is the only time feeble (not used as a man's name) is found in this play; 
and the same is true of grey. 

And here I would say that, if the reader is curious in such matters, he might 
turn to Mrs. Clarke's Concordance of Shakespeare, p. 187, and observe how often 
the words disease and diseases occur in this play of 2d Henry IV. as compared with 
the other Plays. They are found tivelve times; this, with, the Cipher system of 
using the same word over many times, probably implies thirty-six different refer- 
ences, nearly all, I take it, to Shakspere's diseases. As against twelve times in this 

' Fleay's Sha/.-spere Manual, p. 5. - Outlines^ p. 123. 



SHAKSFERE'S SICKA^ESS. 797 

play, these words are not found once in the play of ist Henry IF. , which precedes it, 
or in Henry V. , which follows it. Neither are either of them found in Love's Labor Lost, 
Th^Two Gentlemen of Verona, As You Like It, 7\oelft/i A^io-ht, Richard II., the 
third part of A7;/^'- Henry ]'!., Riehard III., Titus Andronicits, Romeo and Juliet, 
Julius Casar, Othello, oxCymbeline. These words are found, in fact, as often in this 
one play of 2d Henry IV. as they are in all the following plays put together: The 
Tempest, The Merry Wives, Much Ado About A^othing, Midsutnmer Night's Dream, 
The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatm, Pericles, Hamlet, King John, a.nd 2d 
Heniy VI. '^ow \h^ ■^Xs.y oi 2d Henry IV. has no more to do with diseases than 
any other of these Plays; the plot does not in any wise turn upon any disease; the 
references to it are all apparently incidental in the play, but are really caused by 
the necessities of the internal Cipher narrative. And all this tends to show the 
artificial character of the text of these Plays. It is a curious study to examine the 
Shakespeare Concordance and observe how strangely some plays are crowded with 
a particular word which is altogether absent from others. Note the words glove 
2in<\ please (plays), for instance. Please occurs once in A'ing John, twice in Romeo 
arid Juliet, three times in ist Henry IV., fourteen times in 2d Henty IV., and 
twenty-eight times in Henry VIII. ! And yet as a colloquialism — ''please you, my 
Lord," etc. — it might be expected to occur as often in one play as another. 
And the Bishop continues with the description of Shakspere's appearance: 

Pasje and 
Word. Column. 

305—32=273—50=223—5 b (3i)=218— 50 (76:1 )= 

16H. 297—168=129 + 1=130 130 82:1 There 
305— 31=274— 30=244— 50=194— 50 (76:1 )=1 44— 

=4 b col.=140. 140 76:2 is 

305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=218— 30=188— 9 b col. =179 82:1 a 

305—32=273—162=111. Ill 79:1 beastly 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=218— 50=168— 145= 

2:3— 3 /' (14o)=20. 577—20=557+1=558. 558 77:1 wound 
305—32=273—50=223—5/^=218-50=168—145= 

23. 577— 23=554 -Hi =555+2 //=557. 557 77:1 new-healed 
305—31=274—5 b (31)=2G9— 162=107. 468—107= 

361 + 1=362. 362 78:1 on 

305—32=273-50=223— 5/'=218— 50=168— 145= 23 77:1 the 

305— 31=274— 162(78:1)=! 12—3 /' col.=109. 109 77:1 side 

305—32=273—30=243—162=81—2 // col. =79. 79 77:2 of 

30,5—32=273—30=243—162=81. 81 77:2 his 

305— 32=273— 162=111— 6/' &// col. 105 82:1 neck, 
305—31=274—5 b (31 )=269— 162=107. 462—107= 

3,55+1=3.56. 356 78:2 and 

305—32=273—162=111. 318-111=207+1=208. 208 79:1 a 

305—31=274—30=244—5 /;=239— 145=94+162= 256 78:1 great 
305—32=273—50=223—5 /;=218— 50 (76.1)=168 

— 2/^=166. 166 81:1 wen 

305—32=273—30=243—145=98—13 /' & // col.= 85 78:2 or 
305- 32=^3—50=223—5 /;=2 18— 50=1 68—145= 

23. 577—23=554+1= 555 77:1 gall, 

30.5—31=274—30=244—145=99—3 // col. =96. 96 81:2 some 
30.5—31=274—5 /'=269— 162=107. 610—107=503 

+ 1=.504. 504 77:2 thing 

305—32=273—30=243—145=98—3 /- (14.-))=95. 95 77:2 like 



798 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



;-}05_31=274— 30=244-15 h (31)=239— 145=94— 3 b 

(145)=91— 2 //-=89. 
305—32=273—162=111. 518—111=407 + 1=408+ 

3 h col. =411. 
305— 31=274— 30=244— 145=99— 2 h col. =97. 
305—82=273—162=111. 
305—31=274—50=224—145=79—3 // (145)=76. 

498—76=422+1=423. 
305—31=274—30=244—145=99. 
305—31 =274—162=1 1 2. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 <';=219— 162=57. 577— 

57=520+1=521. 
305— 31=274— 30=244— 50=194— 57 v80:l)=137. 

462—1 37=325 + 1 =326. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 /;=219. 
305—31=274—162=112. 296—112=184+1=185. 
305—32=273—50=223—50=173—146=27. 598— 

27=571 + 1=572. 
305—31=274—50=224—5 ^=219—50 (76:1)=169. 

468—169=299+1=300. 



Word. 

89 

411 

97 

111 

423 
99 

112 

521 

326 
219 

185 

572 

300 



Pape and 
Column. 



77.0 



79:1 

77:2 
77:1 

76:1 
82:1 
77:1 

77:1 

80:2 
78:2 
82:1 

79:2 

78:1 



the 



King's 
Evi 
which 



g's I 

ii, r 



every 

day 

grows 

greater, 

and 

his 

strength 

more 

feeble. 



It is hardly necessary for me to explain that " the King's Evil " was the old-time 
name for scrofula, because it was believed by our wise ancestors that the touch of the 
king's hand would cure it; nor is it necessary to add that scrofula is generally accom- 
panied by glandular ulcerations on the sides of the throat — precisely as described 
in the Cipher story. King is a common word in the Plays, but kings is compara- 
tively rare. This is the only strength in this act, and this is the only greater. 

This is the only " tw« " /;/ all the Shakespeare Plays ! And yet here it appears, 
iust where it is wanted, to describe poor Shakspere's scrofulous condition. And 
observe that ^'•rf// and wen are both derived from precisely the same terminal root- 
number 168 [305 — 32=273 — 50=223— 5 /^ (32)=2i8— 50 (76:i)=i6S]. And this is 
the only time ^«// appears in this play I And it is found but four other times in all 
the Histories ! 

And the Bishop says that Shakspere is full of hope that he will recover: 

305—31=274—30—244—146=98—3 b (146)=95— 5 

b & h col. =90. 90 76:1 He 

305—31=274. 318—274=44+1=45. 45 79:1 is 

305—31=274—162=112. 468—112=356+1=357 + 9 

/; & h =366. 
305— 32=273— 3(:^=243— 50=193+163=356. 



305—31=274—162=112. 468—112=356+1= 
305—31=274—30=244+185=429. 
305—32=273—162=111. 468—111=357+1= 
305—31=274-50=224—5 /;=219— 50 (76:1)=169— 

145=24. 457—24=433+1=434. 
305—32=273—50=223-5 /;=218— 50 (76:1)=168+ 

162=330—2/^ col. =328. 
305—31=274. 610—274=336+1=337. 
305—32=273—30=243—50=193—162=31 . 577— 

31=546+1=547. 



366 
356 
357 
429 

358 

434 

328 
337 

547 



78:1 
78:1 
78:1 
81:1 
78:1 

76:2 



flattering 

himself 

with 

the 

hope 

and 



78:1 expectation 

77:2 that 

77:1 he 



SI/AKS FERE'S SICA'iVESS. 799. 

Page and 
Word. Column. 
;^0o— 32=273. 610—273=337+1=338. 338 77:2 will 

.305—32=273—30=343—50=193—162=31. 31 78:1 get 

305_32=273— 50=223. 577—223=354 + 1=355 

+3/i col.=358. ;]58 77:1 well. 

Elaltcring occurs but once besides in this play, and but eight times in ail the 
Histories. Expectation is found but twice in this act, and but eleven times in all 
the Histories. 

And Shakspere thinks he is yet young and his case not so bad: 

305—31=274—30=244—50=194 + 162=356—9 b & //= 347 78: 1 young; 

305—31=274—30=244—50=194+162=356—7/;= 349 78:1 case 
305— 31=274— 50=224— 50 (76:l)=174-r 163=337— 

2//=335. 335 78:1 not 
305—32=273—30=243—162=81. 462—81=381 + 1 

=383+4 /;& //=386. 386 78:2 so 

305— 32=373— 30=243— 50=193— 162=31— 1A= 30 77:2 bad. 

But the Bishop feels certain that he cannot recover from his terrible disease. 
It is, he says, — 

30,5—32=273—50=223—5 /=218— 50=168— 50=118. 

468—118=350+1=351+8/^ col. =359. 359 

305-31=274—50=224—50=174—145=29. 39 

30,5—31=274-30=244—163=81. 81 

305—32=273—50=223—9 / col. =214 214 

He cannot escape the grave: 

305—31=274—30=244—162=82. 577—82=495+1 

=496+2 //col. =498. 498 77:1 Cannot 

305— 32=273— 50=223— 5/=218— 50 (76:l)=168+32=200 79:1 'scape 

30.5— 31=274— 30=2-44—50=194—162=32. 32 78:3 the 

305 -3 1 =274—30= 344— 50=1 94— 1 62=32 . 462— 

32=430 + 1=431. 431 78:2 grave. 

Here, with all these words descriptive of disease and weakness, we find the 
inevitable grave. And this is the only time grave is found in this act. 



505 — 167=338. 
But I shall now go farther and show that these words descrip- 
tive of Shakspere's sickness not only come out at the bidding of 523 
— 218=305 — 31 or 32, but that they are called forth trom the same 
text by an entirely different Cipher number, to-wit: 505 — 167=338 — 
to which we now return. This must demonstrate beyond cavil the 
most exquisite adjustment of the words of the play to certain arith- 
metical requirements. I shall have to be brief, for the story is an 
endless one and the temptation is almost irresistible to follow it 
out into its ramifications. 



78:1 


Eating 


81:1 


away 


77:3 


his 


82:1 


life. 



8oo 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



It must be remembered that, though these two stories are here 
brought together on the same pages, they are probably separated by 
hundreds of pages in the Cipher narrative. 

Neither must it be forgotten that I have worked out but a tithe 
of the story growing out of 523 — 2i8=:3o5. I have given part of 
that which flows from 305 niiin/s 31 or 32, at the top of 79:1; but 
305 is also modified by deducting the other fragments of 79:1, as 
284 and 285 (31 or 32 to 317), 57 or 58, the last section in the column, 
and 199 or 200 (318 to 518), etc. 

In the following statement Bacon speaks himself: 



338— 

338 — ' 
338— 
338— 
338 

338 
338— 
1 
338- 
338- 
338— 
338 



.31=307—30=277. 396—277=119+1=120. 

57 (79 :1)=281— 30=251. 

31=307—163=144. 

32=306—5 /^=301 + 163=464—20 l> & // col.= 

31=307—5 /;=302— 30=272— 145=127— 3 /> (14 

=124— 4/; & // col. =120. 

32=306—5 l> (32)=301— 2 // col. =299. 

■31=307-5 /'=302— 50=252. 462—252=210+ 



=21 1 + 5/^ col. =216. 
.31=307—50=257—4 // col.= 



=253. 



•57 (79:1)=281— 27 (> col.=254. 

31=307—5 ^=302—50=252. 462—252=210+1 

.57 (79:1)=281— 50 (76:1)=231— 10 7^=221. 



338—57=281- 
338—57=281- 
338—32=306- 
338—57 (79:1) 
338—58 (79:1 
338—31 (79:1)= 
338—57=281- 
338—31=307- 

610—110= 
338—57 (79:1)= 
338—31=307- 
338—31=307- 
338—31=307- 

=12+457 
338— 31='!07- 
338— 58(79:1)= 
338—31=307- 
338—32=306- 



■50=231. 

-49 (76:1)=232— 162=70. 

-50=256—50=206—145=61 . 

=281—30=251. 



338-3i 



506 



338—31=307- 
338—102=176. 



=280—30=250—50. 
=307—162=145. 
50=231—162=69. 
5 /; (31)=302— 30=272— 162=110. 
500+1=501 + 2/^ col. 
=281—50=231—31 /> & h col. =200 
50=257—7/^ col. =250. 
30=277—162=115. 
50=257—50=207—145=62—50(76:1) 
=469. 

145=102 + 162=324—9/' & // col.= 
=280—27=253. 

30=277— 162=115— 4^ & h col.= 
50=256—50=206. 
%b &, h col. =297. 
50=257—162=95. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




120 


80:1 


Althoug] 


251 


78:2 


he 


144 


77:2 


is 


444 


78:1 


not 


15) 






120 


77:2 


yet 


299 


79:2 


thirty- 


216 


78:2 


three, 


253 


78:2 


his 


254 


78:2 


back 


=211 


78:2 


is 


221 


74:1 


stooped 
and 


231 


78:2 


his 


70 


77:2 


hair 


61 


76:1 


and 


251 


77:2 


beard 


200 


80:1 


are 


145 


77:2 


turned 


69 


77:2 


white. 


503 


77:2 


Any 


200 


78:2 


one 


250 


77:1 


would 


115 


77:2 


take 


-) 
469 


76:2 


him 


315 


78:1 


by 


253 


78:2 


his 


111 


77:2 


looks 


206 


79:1 


to 


297 


78:1 


• be 


95 


76:1 


an 


176 


77:2 


old 



SHAKSPERE'S SICKNESS. 



80 1 



338—31=307—5 h (32)=302— 50=252. 
338_31==307— 50=257— 145=1 13. 
338-31=307-50=257—50=207-145=62. 
338—32=306—50=256—50 (76: 1)=206— 145=61. 

448— 61=887-*- 1=388. 
338—33=306—162=144. 458—144=314+1=315 + 

ll>& /^ col. =322. 
338—161=177. 577—177=400+1=401 + 3 //=404. 
338—31=307—30=277—50=227—5 /; col. =222. 
338—32=306—50=256—5 /^=35 1—163=89. 598— 

89=509 + 1=510-1-3 ^=513. 
338—32=306—50=256. 
338—31=307—145=163. 
338—31=307—50=257—] 45=112. 
338— 31=307— 50=257-50=207— 145=62— 3 /'=59 

—3 k col. =57. 
338—31=307—50=357—145=113—3 h col.=109. 
338—31=307—50=257—50=207—145=62—3 b (145) 

=59—2 !i col. =57. 
338—32=306—146=160+162=322—9 /; & h col.= 
338—31=307—50=257—50=307—145=63—3 /; (145)= 
338—32=306—50=256—50=306—145=61. 
338— 31=307— 50=257— 50 (76:1)=207— 145=62. 

448—62=386+1=387. 
338—31=307—50=257—4 l> col.=253. 
338—32=306—163=144—5 /; & h col. =139. 



.Vord. 


Page and 
Column. 




253 


76:1 


man, 


113 


79:1 


He 


63 


77:1 


had 



388 



76:1 



great 



333 


76:2 


bunches 


404 


77:1 


as 


333 


78:1 


big 


513 


79:2 


as 


256 


80:1 


my 


162 


79:1 


fist 


112 


77:3 


upon 


57 


76:1 


the 


109 


77:1 


side 


57 


77:3 


of 


313 


78:1 


his 


= 59 


37:1 


throat 


61 


76:1 


and 


387 


76:1 


under 


253 


78:3 


his 


189 


76:3 


chin. 



Here, instead of 701-11 and gaH, we have bunches; and throat instead of lurk. 
And observe how the same significant words, thirty three, are brought out by 
totally different numbers. 

338—161=177. 

338—163=176—5 b& h col.=171. 
338—162=176—4 //=172. 
338—32=306—50=256. 6 1 0—256=354 + 1=355 + 

12 h & //=367. 
338—162=176—1 b col. =175. 
338—32=306—5 ^=301-30=271-50=331. 577— 

221=356+1=357. 
338—162=176. 

338—31=307—50=257. 598—357=341 + 1=343. 
338—32=306—50=256—50=206—145=61—4 b & h= 
338—32=306—5 /;=301— 50=251. 610-351=359 

+ 1=360. 
338—31=307—30=277—57 (79:1)=230. 
338—31=307—5 b (31 )=302— 50=252-^162=414. 
338—163=176—37 /' col. 
338—161=177. 577—177=400+1=401. 

Physician is comparatively a rare word in the Plays, — ■ it is not found in more 
than half the Plays; — yet it occurs in this play three times. Observe how 338 — 
161 up the column \i physician, while 338 — 162=176 down the column is sick. 



177 


77:1 


I 


171 


77:1 


heard 


173 


77:1 


say 


367 


77:2 


he 


175 


77:1 


was 


357 


77:1 


very 


176 


77:1 


sick 


343 


79:2 


and 


57 


77:1 


in 


360 


77:3 


the 


220 


77:1 


care 


414 


78:1 


of 


149 


78:2 


a 


401 


77:1 


physicia: 



802 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



-32 (79:1)=306— 50=256- 
-32=306—50=256—162= 

1 // col. =43. 
81=307—50=257. 462- 

5 b col.=211. 
-32=306—50=256—30=; 
-31=307-7 b col.=300. 
-31=307—162 (78:1)=145 
-57 (59 : 1 )=28 1 -50=23 1 . 
-31=307. 

-31=307—49 (76:1)=258. 
205+8 b & /^=213. 
-32=306—197=109. 

-31=307—50=257—30=227—50=177. 468— 
177=291 + 1=292 + 11 h & // col.=303. 
31 (79:1)=307— 50=257— 57=(79:1) 200. 
577_300=377 + 1=378. 
-31=307—13 /' & h col. =294. 
-57 (79:1)=281— 50=231. 462—231=231 + 1= 
-57=28 1—50=23 1—50=181 
-32=306—146=100. 
-30=308-57=251. 
-284=54—2 b & /z=53. 
-49=289—162=127. 
-50=288—162=126, 

-284 (79:1)=54— 5 b & //=49. 162—49=113+1 
-2S4 (79:1)=54. 162—54=108+1=109. 
-31=307—218 (74:2)=89. 
-32=306-5 b (32)=301— 30=271— 146=125— 

13 b & 7^=112. 
32=306—50=256—50=206—145=61 . 448— 

61=387 + 1=388. 

_31=307— 218 (74:2)=89. 162-89=73+1=74, 

-30=308-32 (79:1)=276. 

-31=307-197 (74:3)=110. 610—110=500+1= 

-32=306—5 /' (32)=301— 30=271— 11 b & h col 

-31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=372— 11 /' & h col 

-31=307-5 b (31)=302— 30=372-161=111- 

2 /;=109. 

-31=307-5 /' (31)=302-30=272. 577-272= 
305+1=306+3 h col. =309. 

338-31=307-5 /; (31)=302-30=272-7 b col.= 
338—32=308—5 /; (32)=301— 30=271— 5 h col.= 
338-57=281—50=331 



338 
338 

338—: 

338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
33 :S 

338 
338 

338—: 



338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 

338-: 

338 
338- 
338 
338 
338 
338 

338 



-162=94—11 b col.= 


Word. 

83 


Page and 
Column. 

78:2 


His 


94— 50(76:l)=44— 


43 


76:1 


health 


-257=205+l=206+ 










211 


78:2 


is 


J26— 50— 176 + 163— 


339 
300 


78:1 
78:1 


very- 
feeble 




145 


78:2 


and 




231 


78:2 


his 


463— 358=204+1= 


307 

213 


78:1 

78:2 


step 
unfirm, 




109 


77:2 


He 



303 



-50=181-145=36. 



112 

388 

74 

276 

501 

=260 

=261 

109 

309 

365 

366 
36 



78:1 



IS 



378 


77:1 


troubled 


294 


77:3 


with 


232 


78:2 


several 


181 


76:1 


dangerous 


160 


78:1 


diseases; 


251 


78:2 


he 


[52] 


78:2 


is 


127 


78:2 


subject 


136 


79:2 


to 


114 


79:1 


the 


109 


79:1 


gout 


89 


78:2 


in 



78:3 

76:1 

78:1 
78:1 
77:3 
77:1 
77:1 

77:2 



his 

great , 
toe; 
and 

I 

hear 

moreover 

he 



77:1 hath 

77:1 fallen 

77:1 into 

78:1 consumption. 



Connunption occurs but once in this play, and but four other times in all the 
Plays. Yet here we have it cohering with gout and the shameful disorder. And 
qotit also appears here twice together and but three other times in all the Plays ! 
And toe appears but this time in this play and but twelve times besides in all the 
thousand pages of the Plays. 



SHAKSPERE'S SICKNESS. 



803 



338 

338 

338 
338 
338 
338 
338 

338 
338- 
338 
338 
338 

338- 
338- 
338 
338- 
338 

338 
338- 
338- 
338- 
33s- 
338- 

338- 
338- 

338- 
338 
338- 
338 
338- 
388- 
338- 

388 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 



32=306— 3U=276. 
-31=307—5 b (31)=302 
305+1=3,06. 



Word. 



Page and 
Column. 

78:1 



-30=273. 577—273= 



306 

32=306—5=301—30=371 . 577—371=306+1=307 

298 

49 

206 



-31=307-9 b & // col. =298. 
-284=54—5 b &. h (284)=49. 
-31=307—50=357. 462—257=305+1=306. 
-31=307—50=257. 396—257=139+1=140+ 
7,^ col. =147. 

-50=388—50 (79:1)=331— 4 k col.=337. 
-33(79:1)=306— 30=376— 31 b& h col.=245. 
-284 (33 to 316, 79:1)=54— 5/' & h (384)=49. 
-57 (79:1)=381— 10/' col.=371. 
_31=307— 50=357. 534—357=377+1=378+ 
7^ col. =285. 
-31=307. 
-31=307—50=257. 



147 
237 
245 
49 
271 



285 
307 
257 

-284 (79:1)=54— 3<!' (284)=51. 162—51=111 + 1=113 

-384 (33 to 316, 79:1)=54— 3 /' (384)=51. (51) 

-31=307—50=257. 462—257=305+1=306+ 

5^(31)=211. 

-284 (33 to 316, 79:1)=54— 50=4— 3 b (384)=1 

-30=308—300 (318</j=108. 

-384 (33 to 316, 79:1)=54. 

-285=53—50=3. 

-384=54—3/' (384)=51. 

-50=388—384 (33 to 316, 79:1)=4. 

594+1=595. 

-57 (79:1)=381— 50. 231—50=181 

-50=288—284 (31 to 316, 79:1)=4. 

159+1=160. 

-30=308—50=258—162=96. 610- 

-285 (79:1)=53. 533—53=480+1=481. 

-31=807—218 (74:2)=89 + 163=252. 

-32=306-30=276—50=226-162=64. 

-31=307—50=257—64 (79:2)=193. 

-31=307—50=257—63 (79:2)=194— 161 (78:1)= 



598—4= 



163—4= 



211 

1 

108 

54 

3 

51 

595 

181 



160 
•96=514+1=515 
481 
252 

64 
193 

33 



31=307—50=257. 598—257=341 + 1=342+ 

9^ col. =351. 351 

-162=176—49=127—11/' coI.=116. 116 

-31=307—5 /'=302— 30=272. 577—272=305+1=306 

-32=306—284 (79:1)=22— 3 /' (284)=19. 19 

-31=307. 610— 307=303+ 1=304+12 <^& /^= 316 

-31=307- 50=257— 27/' col. =230. 230 

-32=306—50=256—50=206—162=44. 44 

-31=307—50=257—162=95. 95 

1-384 (33 to 317, 79:1)=54. 54 

;_31=307— 50=357— 50 (76:1)=207. 207 

.32=306—50=256—162=94. 94 

■31=307—50=257-57 (79:1)=200. 200 



77:1 
77:1 

78:1 
79:2 

78:2 

80:1 

78:2 
78:3 
78:1 
74:1 



79:3 

78:3 
78:2 
78:1 
78:3 



78:2 
78:1 
78:2 
78:2 
79:2 
78:1 

79:3 

78:1 

78:1 
77:2 
79:2 
78:1 
77:2 
80:1 
78:1 

79:2 

78:3 
77:1 
79:1 

77:2 
78:2 
78:2 
78:2 
79:2 
76:2 
78:2 
79:2 



And 

it 

is 

thought 

he 

must 

have 

that 
dreaded 
disease 

they 

call 

the 

French 

which 

is 

one 

of 

the 

most 

incurable 

of 

all 

diseases; 

there 

is, 

in 

truth, 

no 
remedy 

for 

it. 

It 

seems 

to 

dra^v 

all 

the 

substance 

out 

of 

one. 



8o4 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



338—31=307—49—258. 
338—31=307—5 b (31)=303— 50=253. 
338—284 (79:1)=54— 49 (76:1)=5. 
338—31=307—50=357—31 b & h col.=226. 
338—33=306—50=256—31 b &. h col. =225. 
338—32=306—50=256—50=206—163=44. 396— 

44=353+1=353. 
338—284=54—30=24. 
338—32=306—30=276—50 (76:1)=236. 
338—31=307—145=63. 577—63=515 + 1=516. 
338—31=307. 610—307=303 + 1=304+3// col.= 
338—284 (33 to 316)=54— 50=4+163=166. 
338—31=307—50=257—63 (79:3)=194— 3/^ (63)= 
338—31=307—30=377—31=346. 
338—32=306—30=376. 
338—31=307—30=277. 463—277=185+1=186 + 

5/' col =191. 
338—33=306—50=256. 
338—31=307—161=146. 



-30= 



146— 145(76:3)=1. 
163=114. 339-114=335 



338—33=306- 

+ 1=336. 
338—50=388—384=4—3 /;— 3. 463—3=460+1= 
338—50=388—31 (791:1)=357. 463—257=205+1= 
338- 163 (78:1)=175. 463—175=287 + 1=288. 
338—81=307—161=146—145=1. 498—1=497 + 1= 
338—58 (79:1)=280— 58 (80:1)=222. 
338—33=306—30=376—50=336. 
338—57=381. 598—381=317+1=318 + 9 b col.= 
338—57 (79-.l)=381— 7 b col.=374. 
338-31 (79 :1)=307— 163=145. 518—145=373 + 1= 

374+4 h col. =378. 
338—50=288—31 (79)=357— 5 ^ & // col. =353. 
338—144 (317 d 79:1)=194. 
338—31=307 (74:3)— 50=357— 5 /- f31)=353. 
338—57 (79:1)=381. 
338— 31=:i07—50=357— 63(79 :3)=1 94. 
338—31=307—30=277. 462—277=185 + 1=186+ 

5 b col.=191. 
338—284=54—5 b & h (284)=49. 162— 49=1 13+ 1= 
338— 284 (32 to 316, 79:1)=54. 468—54=414+1 = 
338—32=306—30=276—50=226. 462—226=236 + 1 = 
338—31=307—30=277. 
338—57=281—50=231—64 (79:2)=167. 462—167 

=295+1=296. 
338— 384(33to316, 79:1)=54. 163+54=317—3/; 

(084)=214. 
338—30=308—163=146. 339—146=193+1=194 

+ 3/^ col. =196. 
338—50=388—10 /; col. =378. 
338—31— 307— 30=277. 817 (79:1)— 377=40+1= 





Page and 




Word. 


Column. 




358 


78:2 


and 


253 


78:2 


leaves 


5 


80:1 


only 


336 


78:3 


emptiness 


335 


78:3 


and 


353 


80:1 


weariness. 


24 


79:3 


It 


326 


76:3 


was, 


516 


77:1 


I 


307 


77:3 


have 


166 


78:1 


heard 


192 


78:1 


say, 


246 


79:1 


brought 


276 


78:1 


hither 


191 


78:3 


in 


356 


78:3 


the 


1 


76:1 


reign 


226 


80:1 


of 


461 


78:2 


King 


206 






288 


78:2 


Harry, 


498 


76:1 


the 


233 


80:2 


father 


226 


80:1 


of 


327 


79:2 


the 


274 


78:1 


present 


378 


79:1 


Queen, 


252 


78:1 


in 


194 


80:1 


fifteen 


253 


80:1 


hundred 


381 


78:2 


and 


194 


80:1 


fifteen. 


191 


78:2 


In 


114 


78:1 


the 


415 


78:1 


war 


=337 


78:2 


against 


377 


78:2 


the 


396 


78:2 


French 


314 


78:1 


our 


196 


80:1 


foot 


378 


80:1 


soldiers 


41 


79:1 


entered 



SHAKSPERE'S SICKNESS. 



805 



Word. 

338—144 (317 d 79:1)=194— 58 (80:1)=136— 3 h col .= 133 
338—32=306—30=276—50=226-27 // col.=199. 199 
338—144=194. 194 

338—144=194—57=137—14 /; & // col.=123. 123 

338— 57(79:1)=281. 281 

The story of the war is told with great detail. We read 

338-31=307—50=257. 257 

338—32=306-218 (74:2)=88. 88 

338— 32=306— 50=256— 50 (76:1)=206—1 h col.= 205 
338—32=306-50=256—50=206. 533—206=327+1=328 

338—32=306—50=256—15 b & /;=col.=241. 241 

338—32=306—30=276. 276 
338—32=306-30=276-50=226+ 185=41 1— 

3// col. =408. 408 

338—57=281—50=231—161=70. 70 

338—32=306—31 h & 7^=275. 275 

338-32=306—50=256. 462—256=206+1=207. 207 

338—32=306—218 (74:2)=88. 88 

33S— 145 (317 to 462)=193— 5 // (145)=188— 50=138. 138 

338—284 (33 to 317)=54. 54 

338—145 (317 to 462, 79:1)=193— 50=143. 143 

338—32=306—30=276. 276 

And then we are told: 

338—32=306—50=256—50=206 . 468 —206=262 + 

1=263 + 10/. col. =373. 
388—32=306—197=109—11 /> col. =98. 
338— 32=306— 50=256— 5/^=251— 50=201 + 186= 

387—9=378. 
338—33 (79 :1)=306— 50=256. 
338—32=306—30=276—2 // col.=274. 
338—32=306—30=276—50=226—4 /i col. =222. 
338—32=306—30=276—50 (10:1)=236. 508—326= 

382+1=383. 383 

338— 145=193— 186 (81 :2)=7— 4/7 & /^ 3. 489—3 

=486+1=487. 
338—32=306—50=356—50=206. 
338—32 =306— 30=376— 163=1 14. 
338—32=306—50=256—50=206—186=20. 489— 

30=469 + 1=470+1 //=471. 471 

And contracted the dreadful disorder. We then read: 

338—33=306—30=276. 

338—57=381. 533—381=253+1=353+15 /' & //= 
33o_32=306— 30=376— 50=326— 15 /- & /t col. =311. 
338—32=306—30=276—50=226. 396—226=170+1 
338—57=381—50=231—64=167—22 6 & //=145. 
338—57 (79:1 )=281— 50=231. 

338—32=306—50=256—50=206. 396—206=190+ 1 
338—200 (218 to 518, 79:1)=138. 338—138=200+1 



Page and 
Column. 



80 
78 
78 
80 
80 



Holland 

and 

the 

Low 

Countries. 



of the French that — 



79:2 

78:2 
76:1 
79:2 
76:1 
75:2 

81:2 
78:2 
78:2 
78:2 
80:1 
80:2 
80:1 
80:2 
76:1 



iO:V: 



81:1 



They 
fortify 

the 
town 

of 
Gan- 

Gate. 

Our 

forces 

take 

it 
after 

a 
hard 
fight. 



( 



273 


78:2 


Our 


98 


78:2 


men 


378 


81:2 


became 


256 


75:2 


too 


274 


79:2 


familiar 


222 


78:3 


with 



the 



487 


81:1 


women 


306 


80:1 


of 


114 


78:1 


the 



place — 



376 


78:1 


And 


268 


79:2 


when 


211 


80:1 


the 


=171 


80:1 


King 


145 


78:2 


and 


231 


78:2 


his 


=191 


80:1 


forces 


=201 


80:1 


marched 



8o6 



THE CIPHER NARK A TIVE. 



Word. 
338—50=288—31 (79:1)=257— 63 (79:2)=194— 2 b 

(63)=192. 193 

338—31 (T9:l)=307— 50=257— 63 (79:2)=194. 194 

338— 57 (79:1)=2S1. 338—281=57+1=58. 58 

338— 57=^81-30 (:4:2)=2ol. 533— 251=':83+1= 383 
338—31=307—5 A=';.) J— 30=272— 50=322. 461— 

323=239 +1 =2 ;0 + (J//=246. 246 

338— 284 (79:1 )=54. 462—54=408 + 1=409. 409 

338—50 (74:2)=288— 57 (79:1)=231. 231 
338-30=308—162=146—33=114. 463—114=348 

+ 1=349 + 1 //=350. 350 
338—31=307—5 /;=302— 285 (79:1)=17— 2 // (285)= 

15. 468—15=453+1=454. 454 



Page and 

Cf)lumn. 



80:1 
78:1 
80:1 
79:3 

79:1 

78:3 
80:1 

78:3 



:1 



And then we arc told of the ravages of the dreadful disorder. 



338—57 (79:1)=381. 396—381=115 + 1=116+3/^ col. =119 
338—31=307—5 /; (3 1 )=302— 50=252. 598—252= 

346+1=347. 347 

338—144=194—57=137—11 /' col.=126. 126 

338—58=380—58=332—3 // col. =319. 319 

338—57=381—50=331 + 163=394. 394 

338—31=307—50=357—5: (80:1)=200— 14/; & h col. =186 



80:1 

79:2 
80:2 

80:2 
78:1 
80:3 
80:1 
79:3 



back 

to 

England 

they 

brought 

it 
along 

with 

them. 



It 

hath 

made 

sad 

destruction 

among 

the 



80:3 
79:3 
80:1 
75:8 
79:3 



poor 

lewd 

people 

of 

this 
to-wn. 



338—144=194- 10/; coI.=184. 184 

338— 57(79:1)=381. 598—381=317 + 1=318. 318 
338_33=306—50=256— 50=306— 57=149. 523— 

149=374 + 1=375. 375 

338—58 (79:1)=2'^0— 2 // col. =278. 278 

338—32=306—30=276—50=226. 226 

338—32=306—50=256—50 (76:1)=306— 145=61. 61 
338—56=381. 598—281=317+1=318 + 10/; & h col. =328 

The reader will observe that the same root-number produces very significant 
words. For instance, 338 inimis 284 (284 is the number of words in the first sub- 
division of 79:1 above the terminal word 317) leaves a remainder of 54; but in the 
284 there are three words in brackets and two hyphenated words; these give us 54, 
52, 51 and 49 (54—2 h=^i\ 54—3 b=si\ 54—5 ''' & /''=49)- And if we turn to the 
text we find that the 51st word (79:1) is incurable ; and the 49th is disease; while the 

51st word up from the end of scene third (79:1) is ; the 54th is ,§-d)z</, and the 49th 

up is the. But if we deduct 284 from 238 (338—50=288) instead of 338, then, 
instead of a remainder of 54, we have a remainder of 4, and 4 down 79:1 is again 

; while up from the beginning of scene fourth inclusive it is diseases, and down 

it is beard. 

And observe, also, that 33S minits 31, the top section of 79:1, equals 307, and 
307 down 78:1 is s/ep, and plus the brackets it \s feeble, and plus both brackets and 
hyphens it is thought. And 307 produces big — fist — upon — side — throat — French. 
But before we get to this it tells another story: 307, 78:2, is publish; and 307, 79:2, 
is book. But this I will show hereafter. 

This is the only X.\mc ffteen appears in this play; and this is the only time Hol- 
land occurs in this play, and it is found but t7oice in all the Plays. And note how 
ingeniously Low-Countries, the then name of the Netherlands, is worked in ! This 
is the only time countries appears in this play; and it is found but six other times in 



SHAKSPERE'S SICKNESS. 807 

all the Plays I Yet here it is cohering with Lo'cv — Holland — French — %var — foot — 
soldiers — entered — Can -gate — fight — fifteen hundred and fifteen ■ — reign — Kins; 
Harry, and all the other words appearing in these sentences. Queen is concealed in 
Quean, which ^(Yv^rj but three times in all the Plays ! And emptiness appears also 
but three tim'es in all the Plays !! And weariness occurs but th?-ee times in all the 
Plays If! 

If there is not a Cipher here, what miracle was it brought all these extraordi- 
nary words together just where they were needed ? 

After reading these sentences in the Cipher, I turned to the history of the 
period and found that Henry VIII., father of Queen Elizabeth, led a large army 
into France in 1513, and captured Therouanne and Tournay, (the latter town is in 
"the Low Countries,") and beat the French at the Battle of the Spurs, at Guine- 
gate; " made peace in 1514," and " returned home with most of his forces." What 
time the troops got back I have not been able to determine; but Bacon, writing 
eighty-three years afterwards, may or may not have correctly stated the time as 
1515; it may have been 1514. The reality of the Cipher, however, is demonstrated 
in the fact that I did not know that Henry VIII. ever invaded France, and capt- 
ured a town called Guinegate, until I found this statement brought out by the 
number 338 radiating from column i of page 79, and applied to the pages and frag- 
ments of pages of the text, as set forth above. The Cipher statement is valuable 
for another reason: that it helps to settle the mooted question among scientists 
whether that " dreaded disease " did or did not exist in Europe prior to the discov- 
ery of America. There has been considerable discussion upon this point, but the 
better opinion, among physicians, seems to be that it was imported into Spain from 
the West Indies by the sailors of Columbus; from there it spread into France and 
the Netherlands; and in 1515, according to the Cipher story, given above, it was 
brought into England by the returning foot-soldiers of King Henry. And the fact 
that Bacon could stop in the midst of his Cipher narrative to give these details as 
to a shameful but most destructive disorder, is characteristic of the man who, in 
his prose history of Henry VII., paused to describe the great plague which deci- 
mated London in that reign; and even gave for the benefit of posterity the accepted 
mode of treatment, so that, should it return, the people might have the benefit of a 
knowledge of the remedies found useful in the past. And even here Bacon goes 
on to tell the mode of treatment for the shameful disease in question, the princi- 
pal of which, it seems, was the sweating it out of the system. We have Falstafif 
saying, near the end of 77:2: "For if I take but two shirts out with me, and I 
mean not X.o sweat extraordinarily." 

338—57 (lower section 79:1)=281— 162 (78:1)=119. 

610—119=491 + 1=492. 492 77:2 sweat. 

But I have not the time or the space to work out the narrative. 

I will conclude this chapter by calling the attention of the reader to the wonder- 
ful manner in which the words descriptive of Shakspere's disease are so arranged 
as to be used in two narratives by two different numbers, very much like the double 
cipher which Bacon gives in ihe De Augment is, where one cipher phrase is inclosed 
inside of another, and both hidden in a harmless-looking sentence. 

And let the reader examine the facsimile pages, given herewith, and he will 
see that this task was only accomplished by the most extraordinary manipulation of 
the text. Turn to page 78. Observe these unnecessary bracketings and hyphena- 
tions in the first column: 

And first (Lord Marshall) what say you to it ? 



8o8 THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 

And again: 

But gladly would be better satisfied, 

How (in our means) we should advance ourselves. 

Then again we have: 

The question then (Lord Hastings) standeth thus. 
And in the same column Hastings says to Lord Bardolfe: 

'Tis very true Lord Bardolfe, for indeed, etc. 

Here there is a comma after Bardolfe. Why was not Lord Bardolfe embraced 
in brackets as well as Lord Hastings ? They are only eleven lines apart. 

Then note this line: 

May hold-up-head without Northumberland. 

Why were these three words compounded into one, like three-man-beetle in the 
preceding column ? 

Then look at these lines: 

And so with great imagination 

(Proper to mad men) led his Powers to death, 

And (winking) leaped into destruction 

But (by your leave) it never yet did hurt, etc. 

No compositor would print these words in this fashion unless instructed to do 
so. Compare this column with pages 70, 71 and 72 of ist Henry IV. 

But here is the crowning wonder of all this extraordinary bracketing: it is near 
the top of 78:2: 

Or at least desist 
To build at all ? Much more in this great worke, 
(Which is (almost) to pluck a kingdom down. 
And set another up) must we survey, etc. 

Here we have a totally unnecessary bracket sentence of eleven words, and in 
the heai-t of it another bracket word ! A bracket in a bracket I Was anything ever 
seen like it in all the wonders of typography ? 



/ 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SHAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAEF. 

Prince Hal. Wherein is he good but to taste sacke, and drink it ? Wherein neat and cleanly, 
but to carve a capon, and eat it ? Wherein cunning but in craft ? Wherein crafty but in villainy ? 
Wherein villainous but in all things? Wherein Vk'orthy, but in nothing? 

1st Henry II'., ii, 4. 

THE very labor of preparing this work for the press has in- 
creased the perfection of my workmanship, and I ask my 
critics to consider the following, especially the first sentences. Here 
is complete symmetry. Every word is the 338th word [505 — 167 
(74:2)=338]. But more than that: every word is the 33Sth word, 
ffii/ius 31 or 32 (top 79:1); and the 31 and 32 rcgi/larly alternate 
throughout the sentence. And not only is every word 505 — 167=338, 
minus 31 or 32, but every 306 or 307 so obtamed is modified by 
counting in the five bracket words found in that fragment of 31 or 
32 words at the top of 79:1; and the product 301 or 302 alternates 
regularly throughout the example. And every word is 505 — 167=338 
— 31 or 32, minus the 5 bracket words in 31 or 32, itself, or less 30 or 
50, the modifiers on 74:2; and these again are modified by deduct- 
ing the fragments, 146 (76:2) or 162 (78:1), the nearest fragments of 
scenes to 77:2 or 78:1, in which most of the words occur. 

And observe those words, caper — // — about — halloing — and — singing. Caper 
is 302 minus 30 = 272 up the column (77:2); about is 302 minus 30 = 272 do'dm the 
same column; while it is 301 minus 50 up the column. And 302 down the column is 
I't'l/y, and 301 up the column, counting from the clue-word one (78:1), is halloing, 
and 301 from the bottom of the column, plus the hyphenated words, is singing ! 
And 302 gives the intervening and. And just as we saw the length of 74:1 
determined by the necessity to use the words prepared and under by two different 
counts, from the beginning and the end of the column, so here the necessity of 
bringing caper Sinii halloing, and singing, and belly, in their proper places from the two 
ends of 77:2, by the numbers 301 and 302, determined that that column should con- 
tain 610 words, no more and no less, A single additional word would have thrown 
the count out. If, for instance, the Lord Chief Justice, where he says (2S4th word, 
77:2) fy — fy — fy, had simply said /)' once, or even twice, it would have destroyed 
the Cipher. If the words three man beetle (587th) had not been united into one 
word, thus, three-man-beetle, or if it had been printed "three-man beetle," the 

809 



8io 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



Cipher would have failed. Or if the Folio had contained the words which v/ere 
inserted in the Quarto, in Falstaff's speech, some eight lines in length, the count 
would not have matched. Or if where Falstafif says (289th word, 77:2), " My Lord, 
I was born with a white head," etc., the Folio had contained the words which are 
found in the Quarto, "My Lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, 
with a white head," etc., it would have destroyed the Cipher. We can see there- 
fore why these words were inserted in the Quarto by Bacon, to break up the count, 
in case decipherers got on the track of his secret; and why they were taken out again 
when he was preparing the Folio for posterity. And we can see also how false is 
the pretense of the actors, Heminge and Condell, that they had published the Plays 
from the true original copies, " perfect in their limbs," etc. And it is to be noted 
that the eight-line passage left out in Falstaff's speech deserves for its intrinsic 
merits to have been perpetuated in the Folio: 

It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, 
to make it too common. ... It were better to be eaten to death with rust than to 
be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. 

In fact, these additions in the Quarto, being freed from the clogs and restraints 
of the Cipher, are usually written with great force and freedom. We see the genius 
of the author at its best. 

The Bishop of Worcester is speaking in the following: 



Word. 
338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272. 610—272= 

338+1=389+3 // col. =342. 342 

338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 30=271— 162=109— 

2 /.=107 107 

338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 50=252— 30=222— 146= 76 
338—32=306—5 /!i=301— 30=271— 145=126— 4 b & h 

col.=122. 122 

338—31=307—5 (!.=302— 30=272— 79 (73:1)=193— 

145=48. 462—48=414+1=415. 415 

338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 30=271— 146=125. 125 

338—31=307—5 /; (31)=302— 30=272— 146=126. 

603—126=477+1=478. 478 

338 _33=306— 5 b (32)=30 1—30=271— 50=221 . 221 

338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272— 146=126. 

508—126=382+1=383. 383 

338—32=306—5 b (32)=301. 610—301=309+1= 

310-4-9 col.=319. 819 

338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272. 610—272= 

338+1=339. 339 

338—32=306-5/. (32)=301— 50=251. 610—251= 

359+ 1=360+9 /;=369. 369 

338—31=307—5 b (31 )=302— 30=272. 272 

338— 32=306— 5/. (31)=301. 610—301=309+1= 310 
338-31=307—5 b (32)=302— 30=272— 146=126. 

508—126=382+1=383+4 /; & //=387. 387 

338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 50=251— 146=105. 105 

338—31=307—5 b (31)=303— 30=272— 146=126. 

462—126=336+1=337 337 

338—32=306—5^=301. 611—301=310+1=311. 311 



Page and 
Column. 



77:2 

77:2 

77:2 



78:2 
75:2 

76:2 

77:2 

75:2 

77:2 
77:2 

77:2 

77:2 
77:2 

75:2 

77:2 

78:2 

77:2 



For 

I 
have 

some 

times 
seen 

him 

in 

his 

youth 

caper 

it 
about 
with 

a 

light 

heart, 
halloing 



SHAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAFF. 



8ii 



Word. 



-5(5=302. 610—302=308+1=309+ 
610—301=309+1= 



Page and 

Column. 



312 



313 



338—31=307 

3/^=312. 
338—32=306—5 b (31)=301 

310+3 //=313. 
338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272— 50=222— 

146=76. 468— 76=392 +1=393+3-5= 
338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 30=271. 
338—32=306—5 /' (32)=801 -50=252—146=105— 

50 (76:1)=55. 508—55=453 + 1=454+1 /^= 
338—32=306—5 /; (32)=301— 30=271— 50=221. 
338—31=307—5 /; (31 )=302— 50=252, 
338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 50 (76 1)=251. 
338—31=307-5 b (32)=302— 50=252—146= 106— 

50 (76:1)=56. 508—56=452 + 1=453+1 // col.= 454 
338—32=306—5 /' (32)=301— 30=271— 146=125— 1 /^=124 
338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272— 50=222. 

468—222=246+1=247. 
338—32=306—5 /- (32)=301— 30=271— 50 (76:1)= 

221. 458—221=237 + 1=238. 
338—31=307—5 /' (31)=302— 30=272— 146=126. 



and 



77:2 singing 



(396) 


78:1 


by 


271 


76:1 


the 


455 


75:2 


hour, 


221 


78:1 


and 


252 


78:1 


in 


251 


76:2 


the 



75:2 raggedest 
76:2 apparel, 



247 

238 
126 



r8:l 



76:2 



and 



almost 
naked. 



Here we have again the expression almost naked, grow 
33S, but by different terminal numbers. In the former case 

505—167=338—50=288—50 (76:1)=238. 238 

505—167=338—50=288—162 (78:1)=126. 126 



ing out of 505 — 167= 
it was: 



76:2 almost 
78:2 naked 



w 



Here we have it: 

505—167=338—32=306—5 /;=301- 

221. 458—221=237+1=238. 
505—167=338—31=307—5 ^=302- 



-30=271—50= 



-30=272—146= 



238 
126 



76:2 

78:2 



almost ; 
naked. )" 



This is the only time naked occurs in this act, and it is found but twice besides 
in this play. And this is the only time almost occurs in that scene. This is the 
only occasion when ((r/t-r appears in this play; and it occurs but eight times besides 
in all the other Plays ! And halloing or halhnving is so rare a word that it is found 
only thrice besides in all the Plays. And singing is a comparatively rare word; it 
is found but twelve other times in all the Plays. This is the only time apparel is 
found in two acts of this play, and it appears but three times in all the play. And 
this is the only time " raggedest" occurs in all the Plays ! 

I mention these facts to show how improbable it is that all these words, de- 
scriptive of Shakspere's youth, with all the others descriptive of his sickness, etc , 
should have come together here by accident, and be so placed as to cohere arith- 
metically. 

And then we read (pursuing the same rules, the same roots and the same alter- 
nations) that Shakspere was — 

338—32=306—5 /;=301— 50=251 251 

338—31=307-5 />=302— 50=252. 468—252=216+ 

1=217 + 3 h col. =220. 220 

338-32=306—5=301—30=271—146=125— 

hb& h col. =120. 120 



76:1 


A 


78:1 


bold. 


76:1 


forward 



8i, 



THE CIPHER NAUR A TIVE. 



Page and 

Word. Column. 

338—31=307—5 (5=302. 610—302=308+1=309 

+3/^=312. 312 77.2 and 

338—32=306— 5 ,5=301- -30=271— 145=126. 126 76:1 most 

338—31=307—5 /;=302— 30=272— 145=127. 462— 

127=335 + 1=336. 336 78:2 vulgar 

338—32=306— 5/^=301— 30=271— 146=125— 50= 

75. 457+75=532. 532 76:2 boy. 



.09 


78:2 


A 


39 


79:2 


gross, 


57 


79:2 


fat, 


94 


76:1 


on 



And here, the formula changing as we work, we have a description given by 
Bacon of Shakspere as he grew older. We have the following: 

338—32=306—5 /;=301— 30=271— 162=109. 
338—32=306—5 ,5=301—162=139. 
338— 31=307— 30=277— 1 62=1 1 5— 58 (79 :1)=57 . 
338—32=30 3-50=256— 1 62=94. 
338—32=306—50=256—162=94—50=44. 338— 

44=294+1=295. 
338—31=307—5 (5=302—30=272—146 (76:2)=126. 

518—126=392+1=393+4 // col.=397. 
338—32=306—50=256—162=94 462—94=308+ 

l=.369+4 b & h col. =373. 
338—32=306—50=256—162=94. 
338—32=306—50=256—162=94 



295 



397 



80:1 taught 



5c8— 31=307— 50=257— 162=95. 



373 
94 

448—94=354 + 1=355 
462—95=367+1=368 
110 



338— 32=307— 30=277-462=115— 5 b col.=110. 
338—32=306—50=256—162=94. 462—94=368+ 

1=369 + 2=371. (371) 

338—32=306—50=256—162=94. 462-94=368+ 1= 369 



79:1 

78:2 
79:2 
76:1 
78:2 
79:1 

79:2 

78:2 



rogue, 

full 

of 

his 

own 

most 

beastly 
desires. 



Taught is found but twice in this play; both times in act ii, scene i, with only 
two lines between them. We have seen it used already to refer to Susanna's edu- 
cation, and now we see it employed to describe Shakspere. Beastly is compara- 
tively a rare word; it is found but twice in this play, and but twice besides in all 
the Historical Plays. Desires is found but twice in this play, and but twelve times 
in all the Histories. Gross occurs but twice in this play. 

Observe also that all of these last five words are produced by precisely the 
same root-number and the same terminal number, 94, while 115 is the same root- 
number put through the same formula, except that 30 is the modifier instead of 50. 

And then we have, coming out of the same root-numbers (for the difference 
between 94 and 144 is just 50), the following: 



338—31=307—5 b (31 )=302— 50=252. 252 

338— 32=306— 5 /; (32)- 301— 30=271— 50=221— 145= 

76— 3/'(145)=73. 462—73=389+1=390+1 /^col.=391 
388—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272— 50=222. 

577—222=355+1=356+3 h col. =339. 339 

338—32 - 306—162=144. 461—144=317+1=318 

+2 /^=320. 320 

338—32=306—162=144—50=94. 468—94=374+1=375 
318—32=306—162=144. 462—144=318+1=319. 319 

Here again the alternations, 31, 32, etc., are preserved. 



77:2 



r8:2 



78:2 
78:1 

78:2 



glutton, 

rather 

over-greedy 

than 

choice. 



And here observe an astonishing fact: — the -word glutton occurs but twice in all 



SHAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAFF. 813 

the thousand pages of the Plays, and both times it is found in this play, and in this aetj 
and both times it is used to describe Shakspere; and lioth times it gro-ws out of joj 
— i6j=jjS ! If the reader will turn back to 76:1 and take the number 338, and 
count from the first word of scene third, downward and forward, he will find that 
the 338th word \s g/idton. Thus: 

Page and 

Word. Column. 

338— 49 (76:1)=289. 289 76:3 glutton. 

And here we have it again occurring in 78:2, and again it is the 338th word; 
and these are the ojily oceasions ivhen the word is found in all the Shakespeare Plays I 
And if we turn backward with this root-number we stumble again upon the story 
of Shakspere's fight with the game-keepers and the flight of his companions, for 

288 (^338 — 50=288) carried down the preceding column is turned (288, 75:2); and 

289 (33S — 49=289) is their; and 289 up the preceding column is oicr, and 288 is men; 
and 288 up the same, plus b & //, is fed; and 289 — 50=239 down the same column is 
swifter; and 289 up the same column plus the bracket words is arrozcs; and 239 
down the same column plus the b Si, h \s speed. Here, with a touch, as it were, we 
have the elements of the sentence, Our men tin-ned their baeks and fled sivifter than 
the speed of arroTus. But if we use the modifier 30, instead of 50, we have 289 — 30 
=259, and 259 down the same column is prisoiie)-; and plus one hyphen word it is 
/rt'd-« (taken); and////.r both b d Ji'w. is again fled; and 259 up the same column is 
v'^/^/(/(" fled the field"); and plus the bracket words it is again prisoner; and plus 
both b & h\\. is furious ! And 258 (288 — 30=258) down the column is ta'en, and 
up the column it supplies the then for "swifter than the speed," etc. In short, 
everywhere we turn with the magical Cipher numbers, marvelous arithmetical 
adjustments present themselves. 

And then we have this description of Shakspere, coming, it will be observed, 
out of that same 33S minus 31 or 32, counting in the five bracket words in the 31 
or 32: 

338—31=307—5 b (31)=302- -80=272—50=222. 
338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 145=156— 2 b col.= 
338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 145=157— 2 b col.= 
338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 30=271— 4 /^ col.= 
338—31=307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272— 146=126. 

498—126=372+1=373. 
338—32=306—5 (32)=301— 145=156— 2 ^=154. 
338—31 -307—5 b (31)=302— 30=272— 50=222. 
338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 30=271— 14 b & h= 

Here we have the same regular alternatives, 31, 32; 31, 32; 31, 32:31, 32. And 
it stands to reason that to have carried on the deception as to the authorship of 
the Plays in such wise as to escape suspicion, Shakspere must have been a man of 
remarkable shrewdness and some natural ability. And we will find hereafter that he 
was much like Sir John Falstaff in his characteristics. 

But if (when we advance a step farther in the Cipher), instead of using 505 — 
167^338 as the root-number, we count in the 22 /-■ & h words in that 167, we obtain 
still more interesting portions of the story. The formula now is 505 — 167=^338 — 
22 b & /i=3i6; and to save labor to printers and readers I will use in the following 
example only that terminal number, 316: 

505—167=338—22 b & //=316. 
316— 32=284— 162=122— 4/^ &^col.=l 18. 118 77:2 Weighing 



222 


78:2 


With 


154 


77:3 


his 


155 


77:2 


quick 


267 


77:2 


wit 


373 


76:1 


and 


154 


77:2 


his 


222 


78:1 


big 


257 


77:2 


belly. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




370 


76:3 


two 


195 


80:1 


hundred 


554 


77:3 


pound. 



814 THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



316—33=384—50=334. 603—334=369+1= 
316— 33=384— 50=33 i— 30 (76:1)=304. 396—304 

192+1=193+3/; col.=195. 
316—33=384—50=334—30=304—145=59. 610— 

59=551 + 1=553 + 3// col. =554, 

Observe the accuracy of this. Weighing occurs but this one time in this play, 
and but four times besides in all the Plays ! Yet here it is, with all the other words 
descriptive of Shakspere's Falstaffian proportions before sickness broke him 
down. ./^?/«(/;'ft/ occurs but three times in this play; and /<'////(/ but once in this 
act. Here every word is 505 — 167=338 — 22 /; & //=3i6 — 32=284 — 50=234. Think 
how many figures there are that might have applied themselves to that 505 to 
modify it; and yet into this labyrinth of numbers we see the same terminal root- 
immber, reached through all these transmutations, picking out the coherent words, 
as in the above sentence. 

The reader will perceive, by looking at the te.xt, \.\\3X pound was used iox pounds 
in that day: — " Will your Lordship lend me a thousand pound? " 

And now, marvelous to tell. Bacon refers to Shakspere, even as the Bishop 
of Worcester did, as a. glutton; and still more marvelous, the text is so adjusted 
that again for the third time that same word, glutton is used: 

316—49=367—145=133. 448—133=336+1=337. 337 76:1 A 

316—30=386—163=133. 133 78:1 great 
316—30=386—50=336—163=73. 463—73=389+ 

1=390+1 // col=391. 391 78:3 glutton. 

Now compare this with the manner in which glutton was just obtained: 

338—33=306—5 b (33)=301— 30=371— 50=331— 145 
=76—3 b (145)=73. 463—73=389+1=390+ 
1 h col. =391. 391 78:3 glutton 

Here it will be observed that the difference between 145 and 162 is 17, and this, 
plus the 5 /' in 31 (79:1), makes 22, the number of /' c& // words in 165, and thus the 
two counts are so equalized as to fall on the same word. But what a miracle of 
arithmetical adjustments does all this imply ! 

And then the description of the play-actor of Stratford goes on. We are told 
he is, besides being a glutton, a drunkard. Or, as it is expressed, that — 

316—49 (76:1)=367— 146=131. 498—131=377+1=378 
316—50 (74:3)=366— 163=104. 104 

316—50(74:3=366—14.5=131—3/' (145)=118. 610— 

118=493+1=493. 493 

316— 3O(74:3)=380— 163 (78:1)=133. 463—133= 

339+1=340. 340 

316—30 (74:3)=386. 468—386=183+1=183+ 

3Acol.=186. 186 

316— 49 (76:1 )=367— 163=105. 577—105=473+1= 473 
316—50 (74:3)=366— 163=104. 610—104=506+1=507 

The word extraordinarily is a very rare word in the Plays. // is found but t-wice 
in all the Plays, and both times in this play I And this is the only time fond appears 
in all this play; and this is the only time bottle appears in all this piny ! A.nA fond 
occurs but twelve other times in all the Historical Plavs; and bottle but four other 



76:1 


He 




77:3 


is 




77:3 extraordinarily 


78:3 


fond 




78:1 


of 




77:1 


the 




77:3 


bottle. 





SIfAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAEF. 



815 



times I Yet here they are linked together by the same root-number, with the 
naturally coherent words: ^/> — /v//i' — -cveighing — tioo — Iiiindred — pound — great 
— glutton, elc. And glutton doe.?, noi, I have shown, appear in any other of the 
Shakespeare Plays ! Surely the blindest and most perverse must concede that all this 
cannot be accidental. 

And then we have the following important statement; 



310—161=155—57=98—12 l> & h col. =86. 
316—161=155. 610—155=455+1=456. 
316—49 (76:1)=267— 57=210. 
31 6— -1 62=1 54—57 (80 : 1 )=97 . 523—97=426 + 1= 

427+2 /;=429. 
316— 50(74: 2)=266+ 32 (79:1)=298— 2 h col.=296. 
316—30=286—162=124. 468—124=344+1=345 

+ l/,=346. 
316—49=267—145=122. 
316—50=266. 339—266=73+1=74. 
316—30=286. 339—286=53+1=54+3 /;=57. 
316—50=266—50=216. 468—216=252+1=253. 
316—30=286—161=125—57 (80:1)=68. 523—68= 

455+1=456. 
316—31=285—30=255—4 // col. =251. 
316—161 (78:1)=155— 2/- col.=153. 
316—161=155—5/; & 7^=150. 
316—161 (18:1)=155. 
316—49=267. 
316—31=285—50=235. 
316— 5 (^& //col. =311. 
316—50=266—50=216. 468—216=252+1=253+ 

Zk col. =256. 
316—49=267—10 b col. =257. 

316—31=285—145=140—3 /;=137. 162— 137=25^ 
316—30=286—161=125. 468—125=343+1=344. 
316—32=284. 610—284=326+1=327 
316—49=267. 

316—163=153—4/' & h col. =149. 
316. 468—316=152+1=153. 
316—32=284—50=234—10/ col. =224. 
316—32=284. 

316—30=286—32=254. 268—254=214+1=215+3 //=218 
316. 

316—2 //=314. 
316—32=284—50=234—65 

ll(5col.=100. 
316. 610—316=294+ 1=295+9 / col.=304. 
316—32=284—50=234—65 (79:2)=169— 58 (80:1)= 

111. 523—111=413+1=413. 
316—50=266+162=428. 
316-32=284. 

316-49=267. 577—267=310+1=311. 
316— 32=284— 50=234— 162=72— 11 /=61. 



=169—58 (80:1)=111- 



Word. 

86 


Page and 
Column. 

80:2 


But 


456 


77:2 


I 


'no 


77:2 


must 


429 


80:2 


confess 


296 


79:1 


there 


346 


78:1 


was 


122 


78:2 


some 


74 


80:1 


humor 


57 


80:1 


in 


253 


78:1 


the 


456 


80:2 


villain; 


251 


78:2 


he 


153 


77:2 


hath 


150 


77:2 


a 


155 


77:2 


quick 


267 


77:2 


wit, 


235 


78:2 


and 


311 


79-1 


a 


256 

257 

1=26 


78:1 
77:2 
78:1 


great 
belly; 
and, 


344 


78:1 


indeed, 


327 


77:2 


I 


267 






149 


77:2 


made 


153 


78:1 


use 


224 


77:2 


of 


284 


78:1 


him. 


=218 


78:1 


with 


316 


7S:1 


the 


314 


78:1 


assistance 


100 


80:3 


of 


304 


77:2 


my 


413 


80:1 


brother. 


428 


78:1 


as 


284 


78:2 


the 


311 
61 


77:1 
78:3 


original 
model 



8t0 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



316—82= 
316—32= 
316—31= 
316—32= 
316. 

316—32= 
316. 

316—30= 
528- 
316—32= 
316—32= 
316—30= 
316—31= 
316—30= 
316—32= 



=284— 4/; & /; col. =280. 

=o,^4_5 /, ^32)=279+ 162=441— 3 h col.= 

=285. 

=284—50=234—4 // col.=230. 

=284—50=234. 

=286—161=125—50 (76:1)=75. 603—75= 
1=529. 

=284—50=234. 598—234=364+1=365. 
=384—161=123—50=73. 603—73=530+1 = 
=286—162=124. 610—124=486+1=487. 
=285—50=235. 598—235=368 + 1=364. 
=286—162=124. 
=284— 146=138— 3^ (146)=135+162= 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




280 


79:1 


from 


488 


78:1 


which 


285 


78:1 


we 


230 


78:2 


draw 


316 


78:1 


the 


234 


77:2 


characters 


316 


78:2 


of 


529 


76:2 


Sir 


865 


79:2 


John 


=581 


76:2 


Falstaffe 


487 


77:2 


and 


364 


79:2 


Sir 


124 


78:1 


Toe \ 


297 


78:1 


be. f 



It wiirbe remembered that the characters of Sir John Falstaff and Sir Toby, 
in Twelfth Night, have many points of similarity: both are corpulent, sordid, 
gluttonous, sensual, wine-drinking and dishonest; indeed, very much such characters 
as Bacon describes Shakspere to have been. 

Note how many significant words come out of the same root-number: 234 is 
charactc7-s: it is also dra^v {draw characteis); it is also, minus 162, model {model to 
draw charaele)-s)\ it is also, up the next column forward, ye//;/,- and 284 (234+50= 
284) is, minus 161, Ealstaffe; and 284 is from; and 234 again is brother. And 
observe, also, the number 316, out of which 234 is drawn by deducting 32 (79:1): 
316 from the top of scene fourth (78:1), carried backward to the next column and 
down it, is made; and 316 from the end of column 78:1 upward is use {made use); 
and 316 carried down the next column (78:2), is of {made useof)\ and 316, commenc- 
ing at the end of the same scene and carried down 78:1, is him {made use of him). 

And this revelation supplies an answer to a question which has puzzled the com- 
mentators: Where did the author of the Plays find the character of Falstaff? 
There was nothing like it in literature. Knight cannot discover' " the very slight- 
est similarity " to Sir John Oldcastle in the old play entitled The Famous Victories 
of King Henry V. The name was borrowed, as I have shown, but not the char- 
acter Ritson thinks the name was taken "without the slightest hint of the char- 
acter." We have the explanation. The fat knight was Shakspere. 

The character of Falstaff is often referred to in the Cipher story. The com- 
bination Fall-staff \% found in eighteen of the Plays; and wherever jV^?^ appears in 
the text, in everv case ''fall" is near at hand I In The Tempest hoih occur in act 

V, scene i; in Much Ado both are found in act v, scene i; in Richard II. both 
appear in act ii, scene 2; in 2d Henry VI. both occur in act ii, scene 3; \n jd Henry 

VI. both are found in act ii, scene i; and in Hamlet both appear in act iv, scene 5; 
while in every other instance they are found near together. 

The Cipher statement that Bacon had the assistance of his brother Anthony in 
preparing some of the Plays is just what we might expect. This will account for 
the familiarity with Italian scenes and names manifested in them; for Anthony had 
resided for years in Italy. We can imagine the two brothers, alike in many traits 
of mind, working together at St. Albans, or in their chambers at Gray's Inn; 



1 Introductory Notice to Henry IV., p. i66, vol. i of Histories 



SHAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAFF. 



817 



Francis pulling the laboring oar, and the sick Anthony making valuable sugges- 
tions as to plots and characters. And one cannot help but imagine how the brothers 
must have enjoyed the rollicking scene of the fat Shakspere, leaping and singing 
about on the stage, enacting his own shameful character in the disguise of Fal- 
stafJ ! It was capping the climax of the ludicrous. It was a farce inside of a 
comedy. 

I am aware it will be thought by some that I had read the foregoing passage in 
the Cipher story before I wrote that part of the Argument oi this book wherein I 
suggested ' that Shakspere was Falstaff. But I beg to assure the reader that all 
the Argument was in type before I worked out this portion of the Cipher narrative. 
In fact, the first suggestion that Falstaff might be Shakspere was made to me two 
or three years ago by my wife. 

And the multitude also enjoyed the sight, which must have entertained Francis 
and Anthony so much. 

Page and 





Word. 


Column. 




316. 


316 


77:2 


To 


i516 140—171 .")/;& //col 166. [316 146—170 








3^—167 163— 4, 78:2, .f<r]. 


166 


77:1 


see 


316—49—267. 610-267-343+1-344+3// col.— 


347 


77:2 


him 


ai6— 32=284. 610—284—326 + 1—327 + 12/; & // col. 


=339 


77:2 


caper 


316—32=284-30=254. 468—254=214+1=215+ 








3 h col =218, 


218 


78:1 


with 


;:516— 32=284— 50=234. 457 -234=223+ 1=224. 


224 


76:2 


his 


i516— 50=266— 50=216. 468—216=252+1=253+ 








3// col. =256. 


256 


78:1 


great 


316— 15 (^& // col.— 301. 


301 


77:2 


round 


316 49—267 10 /' col —257. 


257 


77:2 


belly. 



The curious reader will note that hclly appears five times in acts i and ii of this 
play, and twice in act iv, or seven times in all in this play; while it is altogether 
absent from one-half the Plays, and appears but once in each of eight of the Plays. 
Why? Because of the descriptions, here given, of Shakspere's corpulence, and 
the story of the effect of the poison on the stomach of Francis Bacon, which will 
hereafter appear. 

And then Bacon goes on to tell of the wonderful success of the part of Sir 
|ohn Falstaff: 



316 -32=284—50=234 + 1 62=396. 

316— 49(76: l)=267— 162=105. 

316— 32=2§4— 50 ^76:1)=234. 

316—32=284—14 b col. =270. 

31 6— 32=284— 30=254. 468— 254=214 + 1=315 + 

X'Sb &h col. =230. 
316—31=285—162=123—61 (80:2)=62. 489—62= 

427+1=428. 
316—31=285—162=123—13/; & // col. =110. 
316—32=284—50=234—146=88—3 b (146)=85. 

457—85=372+1=373. 
316—50=266. 534—266=268+1=269 lhco\.= 



396 


78:2 


It 


105 


78:2 


draws 


234 


78:2 


together, 


270 


79:1 


to 



230 

428 
110 

373 
276 



78:1 

81:1 

78:2 

76:2 
79:2 



the 

play \ 
house S 

yards, 
such 



' See p. 279, ante. 



^ c* c* 



8i8 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



316—32=284-50=234—146=88—3 b (146)=85. 

468—85=383+ 1=384. 
316—32=284—50=234. 
316—32=284—50—234—5 /- col. =229. 
316—50=266. 534—266=268+1=269+9 b & h col= 
316—7/^=309. 

316—32=284—162=122—11 b col.=lll. • 
316—162=154+32 (79:1)=186. 
316— 162=154— 13 ^'=141. 
316—32=284—50=234. 468—234=234+1=235+ 

12/; col. =247. 

316—162=154. 

31 6—32=284—1 45=1 39. 

316—31=285—30=255. 

316—31 =285—50=235. 

316—32=284—146=138. 



603—255=348+1=349. 
610—235=375 + 1=376. 
, ,„. 610—138=472+1=473. 
316—50=266. 610—266=344+1=345 + 9 b col.= 
316—32=284—50=234—1 63=71—32 (79 : 1 )=39. 
316—32=284—7/; col.=277. 
316—49=267. 610- 
316—50=266. 



-267=343+1=344. 
610—266=344+1=345. 



IVord. 


Page and 
Column. 


ji< 


384 
234 


78:1 
78:1 


great 
musters 


229 


78:1 


of 


278 
309 


79:2 

78:1 


people, 
far 


111 
186 
141 


78:2 
79:1 

78:2 


beyond 

my 
hopes 


247 


78:1 


and 


154 
139 


78:2 ^ 
78:2 


expectation^ 
that 


349 
376 


76:2 
77:2 


they 
took 


473 


77:2 


in 


354 


77:2 


at 


89 


78:2 


least 


277 
344 


78:1 

77:2 


twenty 
thousand 


345 


77:2 


marks. 



iS-^-^ 



The word yard is peculiar; it meant what was called the pit, fifty years ago^ 
and what is now designated as the parqiictte; it was the roofless body of the play- 
house. Collier says, speaking of the Globe theater: 

It had rails to prevent spectators in the yard from intruding on the stage. * 

And again Collier says: 

W. Fennor in his Description, i6i6, speaks with great contempt of that part 
of the audience in a public theater which occupied the yard . . . He adds: 

But leave we these, who for their just reward 
Shall gape and gaze among \.\\^ fools in the yard. ^ 

FrtTrt' occurs but four times in all the Plays; this is the only time dra7i's is found 
in this play; and this is the only time ?nitslcrs appears in this scene. Musters sig- 
nified gatherings of people. "Defense, musters, preparations" {Henry V., ii, 4);. 
and "make fearful musters and prepared defense" {ist Henry IV , Induction). 
Expectation is found five times in this play, and but six times in all the other nine 
Historical Plays ! Even the common word far is found but once in act i, and but 
four times more in all this play; and least occurs but twice in this play; and marks- 
but this one time in this play; and even hopes is found but twice in this act an± 
scene, and four times in all the play. 

And it seems the tradition was right which said Queen Elizabeth was especially 
pleased with the character of Sir John Falstafi. We read: 

316—32=284—57=227—14 / & h col. =213. 
316—31=285—50 (76:1)=235. 

316— 32=284— 50=234— 65 (79:2)=169— 10 b col.= 
316— 31=285— 50 (76:1)=235. 



213 


79:1 


It 


235 


80:2 


pleases 


159 


80:1 


her 


235 


77:1 


Majesty- 



1 En_s:lish Dramatic Poetry, vol. iii, p. no. 



^ Ibid., vol. iii, p. 143. 



SHAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAFF. 



819 



kVord. 


Page and 
Column. 




446 


78.1 


much 


180 


78:2 


more 


339 


76:3 


than 


118 
156 

86 


77:1 

78:1 
78:2 


any 
thing 
else 


176 


79:1 


in 


35 


80:1 


these 


118 


78:1 


Plays 



45 


78:1 


It 


9 


79:1 


seems 


416 


78:1 


mdeed 


381 


78:2 


to 


235 


77:2 


grow 


138 


77:2 


in 


137 


77:2 


regard 


270 


77:2 


every 


286 


79:1 


day.. 



316—32=284+162=446. 

316—32=284—50 (74:2)=234— 50 (76:1)=184— 

4 h col. =180. 
316—50=266. 603—266=337 + 1=338+1 h col.= 
316—50=266—145=121—3 h (145)=118 
316. 468—316=152+1=153+3 h col.=156. 
316—32=284—50=234—146=88—2 h col.=86. 
316—31=285—50=235—57=178—2 h col.=176.. 
316. 338— 31 6=22 +1=23 -H 2 b col.=35. 
316—50=266—145=121—3 b (145)=118. 

And then we are told that the part of Sir John continued to increase in popu- 
larity : 

316—50=266—145=121—3 b (145)=118. 162—118= 

44+1=45. 
316—145=17 1 —1 62=9. 
316—32=284—30=254 + 162=416. 

316—32=284—50=234—146=88—3 b (146)=85. 

462— 85=377+1=378+3/-' col. =381. 
316—31=285—50=235. 
316—32=284—146=138. 
316—31=285—146=139—2 b col.=137. 
316-31=285—15/; & h col. =270. 
316—30=286. 

And then we are told that the popularity of Sir John with the swarming multi- 
tudes helped Bacon somewhat out of the necessities which his biographers tell us 
pressed so sorely upon him: 

316— 3 J=284— 50=234. 610—234=376+1=377. 

316—32=284—30=254-5 b col. =249 

316— 32=284— 146=138 

316—49=267 + 162=429—17/; col. =412. 

316—57 (80:1)=259— 62 (80:2)=197. 

316—32=284—145=139—3 b (146)=136. 610—136 

=474+1=475+2 h col. =477. 
316—32=284—146=138. 577—138=439 + 1=440+ 

3/; col. =443. 
316—32=284—145=139- -3 /' (145)=136. 
316—32=284—30=254. 255—50=205—4// col.= 

Bacon was unable to take care of his gains; but the thrifty ShaJcspere turned 
his share to g.ood account. We read: 

315— 3o=o.q4_i46=i38— 3/' (146)=135— 5 /' col.= 
316—32=284—50=234—50=184 + 162=346. 
316—32=284—146=138. 577—138=439+1=440. 
316— 32=284— 50=234— 50=184— 22^ & h col. =162. 
316—31=285—30=255—50=205—146=59+162= 

221— 5/; col. =216. 
316—32=284—162 (78:1)=122— 58 (80:1)=64. 528— 

64=459-^1=460+2/; col. =462. 



377 


77:2 


It 


249 


78:1 


supplies 


188 


i 1 :1 


my 


412 


78:1 


present 


197 


81:1 


needs. 


477 


77:2 


for 


443 


77:1 


some 


136 


77:3 


little 


201 


77:1 


time. 



130 


79:1 


He 


346 


78:1 


was 


440 


77:2 


wise 


162 


78:2 


enough 



216 



462 



78:1 



80:2 



to 



save 



820 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



816. 577—316=261 + 1=263. 
316—32=284—146=188. 162—138=24+1=25 
316—32=284—50=234—50=184. 462—184=278+ 

1=279+8 b & /i=2S7. 
316— 32=284— 50=234— 162=72— 50(76 :1)=22. 

457-22=435+1=436. 
316—32=284—146=138. 462—138=324+1=325. 
816—82=284—50=234—162=72. 
816—32=284-146=138. 468—138=330+1=331 
316—82=284—50=234—50=184—4 // col=180. 



Word. 

262 

25 

287 



Page and 
Column. 

77:1 

78:1 



78:2 



436 


76:2 


825 


78:2 


72 


78:2 


381 


78:1 


180 


77:1 



his 
groats 

and 

buy 

an 

estate 

of 



lordship. 

And then the Cipher tells us something altogether new, that will be interesting 
to all lovers of the Plays, and especially to the great German race. Bacon says: 



316—50=266—58=208. 

316—145=171. 

316—32=284—58=226-11 /> col.=215. 

316—80=286. 598—286=312+1=318. 

816—2 /i col.=314. 

816—32=284—50=234. 577—284=343+1=844. 

816. 888—316=22+1=23. 

816—144 (317 to 461 79:1)=172. 577—172=405+ 

1=406+11 /> col. =41 7. 
316—31=285—30=255. 

516—31=285. 598—285=313—1=314+9 b col.= 
-^16—57 (80:1)=259. 

,316—80=286—57=229—14 d & h col. =215. 
.316—31=285—50=235. 838—235=103+1=104. 
.316—32=384—14 b col.=(270). 

;316— 80=286— 57 (80:1)=229. 598—229=369+1= 
316. 388— 316=22+ 1=23+5 //col.=28. 
316—30=286—57 (80:1)=229. 
316—31=285—57=228. 523—228=295+1=296. 
316—58 (80:1)=258. 523—258=265+1=266. 
316—57=259. 533—259=274+1=275 + 7/' c&i.= 
316—32=284—57=227. 598—227=871 + 1=872+ 

10 /. & /^=382. 
316—30=286—57 (80:1)=229. 
316—32=284. 338—284=54+ 1=55+3 //=58. 
316—31=285—80=255. 338—255=83 + 1=84. 

-5 b & // col. =166. 
598—284=314+ 1=815. 

-162=123. 

-50=234—50 (76:1)=184. 462- 



316—145=171- 
316-33=284. 
316—81=285- 
316—32=284 

278+1=279. 
316—81=285—80=255. 

3 // col. =(87). 
316—32=284—30=254. 

8/^col.=(8S). 
316—81=385—50=285. 



-184= 



338— 255=83 +1=84 T 



338—254=84+1=85+ 



339-235=104+1=105. 



208 
171 
215 
313 
314 
344 
23 

417 
255 

323 

259 
215 
104 
(370) 
870 
38 
229 
296 
:J66 
383 

383 
239 
58 
84 
166 
315 
123 

379 

(87) 



80:3 
77:1 
80:3 
79:3 
79:3 
77:1 
80:1 

77:1 
79:3 
79:3 
79:3 

80:3 
80:1 
79:3 
79:3 
80:1 
79:3 
SO -.3 
80::^ 
79:3 

79:3 
80:3 
80:1 
80:1 
77:1 
79:3 
78:3 

78:3 

80:1 



I 

heard 

that 

my 

Lord 

the 

German 

Minister 

told 

Says \ 

ill s 

that 

it 

■was 

well 

worth 

coming 

all 

the 

long 

•way 

to 
England 

to 
see 
this 
part 

of 

Sir 



316—31=385. 388— 385=53+1=54-1-3 /^ col. =57. 



(88) 


80:1 


John 


105 


80:1 


alone, 


57 


80:1 


in 



SNA A' SP ERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAFF. 821 

Page and 

Word. Column. 

316—32=284. 598—284=314+1=315. 315 79:2 this 
316—30=286—163 (78:1)=124— 62 ',80:1)=62. 489 

-62=427+1=428. 428 81:1 play 

316—32=284. 598— 284=314+1=315+10 /'& //= 325 79:2 and 

316—31=285—30=255. 255 78:2 The 
316— 32=284— 57=227— 62=165— 4 ^ & h (62)=161. 

489—161=328+1=329. 329 81:1 Merry 

316— 32=284— 145=139— 58 (80:1)=81— 62=19. 19 81:1 Wives 

316—31=285—50=235. 235 77:2 of 

316— 64 (79:2)=252— 57 (80:1)=195— 2 // col.=193. 193 79:2 Windsor. 

Here the word nieny is disguised in many, which represented the pronuncia- 
tion of the word in that age. Mr. F. G. Fleay, in his Shakespeare JMatiiial, p. 66, 
shows that e was then usually pronounced like " <? in m(7re," and " rarely as e in 
^■ve;" and ineny was therefore pronounced many or maiy. After awhile we 
shall see J\Ieny Wives of Windsoi' used again, with the word merry as found 
in the same act, scene fourth, "A tiieny song, come; it grows late." And how 
cunningly is 7oi'c'es disguised in ale-wive' s (19, 81:1). And yet the work is 
strained. The line is: " He had made two holes in the ale-wive's new petticoat." 
It should be ale-wife's; but zaife's would not have given us the Merry IVives of 
Windsor, and hence the woman had to be turned into a plural. And see how 
Windsor is dragged in: " The prince broke thy head for likening him to a singing 
man of Windsor." Why a singing man of Windsor and not of some other town? 
And what 7aas a " singing man of Windsor" ? Let the curious examine the Con- 
cordance for the relations between the words merry wives and Windsor, or the dis- 
guise Wind-sir, in the different Plays. 

And what is "the German hunting in water-worke " ? The commentators can 
make nothing of it? And we will see that as German is the 316th word from the 
last word of scene i, so hunting is the 316th word from the beginning of the next 
scene, and that it describes Shakspere's rabbit-hunting as a boy: 

31G— 161 (78:1)=155— 57 (80:i:=98— 61 (80:2)=37— 

4/;& /m61)=33. 33 81:1 rabbit } 

316. 339—316=23—1=24. 24 80:1 hunting f 

and that 98 (155—57=98) is lo'w (80:2), and that 37 [155—57=98—61 (8o:2)=37] is 
rascally; and that the same 234 (316 — 32=284 — 50=234) which produced draiVy 
characters and ^o Ti\Si-ny other important words, carried through that same 57, and 
up from the end of the first section of the next column, plus i hyphen, yields 286, 
80:2, company; and so we have: rabbit — hunting — rascally — lo7<.> — company I 

It would seem, I say, as if German admiration of the great genius revealed in 
the Plays began at an early period; and the pride with which Bacon refers to this 
approbation of a distinguished foreigner is characteristic of the man who left 
" his memory to the next ages and to foreign nations." He felt the inadequacy of 
the development of his own people at that time. 

It may be objected that I gave in the beginning of the chapter a long sentence 
where 31 and 32 regularly alternated; but that in the foregoing, and in some pas- 
sages that follow, we have 316 used by itself as a root-number, and sometimes alter- 
nated with 30, 50, 31 and 32. The answer is that in these latter instances the top 
fragment of 79:1 is not used as a starting-point, as in the former case, but that the 
number 316 plays backward and forward between the beginning of scene third and 
the end of scene fourth; and that 316 is the real root-number. 



822 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



And we also have given at length, in the Cipher narrative, the conversation 
between Cecil and the German Minister. And the Minister — 



S 1 6—33=284—57=227—62=1 65 . 489—1 65=324 + 1=325 

3 1 6—32=284—30=254—1 62=92. 

316— 31=285— 50=235— 57=178— 3 // col. =175. 

316—30=286—30=256—162=94. 

316. 598—316=282 + 1=283. 

316— 32=284— L 0=254—162=92. 610—92=518+1 

=519 + 2 /•col. =521. 
316—30=286. 338—286=52+1=53. 
316—30=286—50=236—50=186—22 /- col. =164. 
316—31=285—50=235. 338—235=103+1=104. 
316—32- 284—30=254—162=92. 
316—31=285—50=235—57 (80:1)=178— 62 (80:2)= 

116. 489—116=373 + 1=374. 
316—32=284—50=234—57=177—62=115. 489— 

11.5=374 + 1=375. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




=325 


81:1 


swear; 


92 


77:2 


up 


175 


80:2 


and 


94 


77:2 


down 


283 


79:3 


they 


521 


77:2 


can 


53 


80:1 


not 


164 


78:2 


equal 


104 


80:1 


it 


92 


78:2 


in 



374 



375 



81:1 



81:1 



all 



Europe. 



These are rare words. F.jirope occurs but ten times in all the Plays; iniiiister 
but twice in this play, and but eleven other times in all the Historical Plays. Ger- 
man is found but this one time in this play, and but nine times in all the Plays. 

And observe the additional multitudinous proofs of the Cipher: While 316, up 
from the end of scene i, act ii, is German, 316, up the same column, but counting 
in the five hyphens in the column, is ivorth; and 316 less 3015 286, and this, less 57 
(the section at the end of 80:1), is 229; and 229, carried down the preceding column, 
is coming [ivorth coming); and 229 down the next column forward is to; and 229 up 
the same column is well (well worth cojiiing to); and 316 — ^32^284, and this carried 
again up from the end of scene i, as in the case of German and ivorth, produces, 
J)lus the hyphens, England {well worth coming to England); and 284 again less 
57 is 227, and 227 carried again up the preceding column, + b & h, yields zvay; 
and 316 less the same 57 produces long {luell worth coming all the long way to Eng- 
land). 

I gave a great many instances, on page 715, ante, where says and ill or seas 
and ill were matched together to produce Cecil (pronounced Sacil), and here we 
have another; and we shall see still others as we progress. 

Then the German Minister grows enthusiastic over the dramatic delineation 
of the character of Sir John Falstaff. In his conversation with Cecil — 



-62=115. 
489—68=421 + 



316—32=284—50=234—57=177- 
316—32=284—30=254—186=68. 

1=422+1/^=423. 
316—30=286—57=229—3 h col.=226. 
316—50=266—57=209. 
316—49 (76:1)=267— 57=210. 

316—50=366—57=309—61 (80:2)=148— 4<^ & h col. 
316—31=285—57=228—11 1> col. =21 7. 
316—57=259—186 (81 :2)=73. 
31 6—32=284—57=327. 
316—30=386—62 (80:2)=224. 
316—57=259. 534—259=275 + 1=276. 
316—31=285. 338—385=53+1=54. 



115 

423 
326 
209 
310 
=144 
217 

73 
227 
334 
376 

54 



81:1 

81:1 
80:2 
80:2 
80:2 
81:1 
80:2 
81:1 
8Q:2 
81:1 
79:2 
80:1 



He 

said: 
I 

tell 

thee, 

the 

man 

that 

could 

conceive 

such 

a 



SHAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAFF. 



823 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




146 


81:1 


part 


173 


81:1 


as 


73 


80:1 


this, 


63 


80:1 


and 


(!4 


80:1 


draw 


104 


80:1 


it 


=163 


80:2 


so 


425 


81:1 


well, 


217 


80:2 


should 


16H 


81:1 


be 


145 


81:1 


immortal, 



316—50 (76:1)=266— 57=209— 61 (80:1)=148— 

2/; col. =146. 
,316—31=285—49=235—62=173. 
.316—50=266. 338—266=72+1=73. 
.316—31=285. 338—285=53+1=54+9 /' col. =63. 
316—32=284. 338—284=54+1=55+9/; col. =64. 
.316—31=285—50=235. 338-23:.=103+] = 104. 
.316— 32=284— 50=284— 58 (80:1)=176— 14 (^& // col = 
.316—32=284—30=254—185 (81:2)=69. 489-69= 

420—1+4^ & h (185)=425. 
.316—31=285—57=228—11 h col.=217. 
316—30=286—57=229—61 (80:2)=168. 
316—50=266—57=209—62 (80:1)=147— 2^ col.= 

This is the only time iniDiortal occurs in this play, and it is found but twice 
besides in all the Historical Plays. And this is the only time conceive appears in 
this play; and it is found but three times besides in all the Historical Plays. 
Observe the word /rt;V in the Concordance: — how often it occurs in some plays 
and how rarely in others. It is found but five times in Macbeth, while we dis- 
cover it twenty-four times in Hamlet; and play occurs but four times in Alacbetli; 
while //<?!' and /A7i'j- are found thirty-five times in Hamlet ! This is because the 
•Cipher story in the latter play tells us a great deal about the Plays and players, and 
.acting, etc., while in Macbeth those subjects are but little referred to. And where 
J>lays are alluded to in the internal narrative, it is natural to speak of such and such 
a paj-t in the play, or of the first, second or third part of some of the Historical 
Plays. 

And it further appears (departing a little from our root-number 316) that — as I 
"had supposed — Shakspere was a usurer in the full sense of the term. We are told 
by this same root-number, 33S, that he acquired a great part of his wealth by this 
practice, and is clad in — 

338—33=306-5 b (32)=301— 30=271— 146=125— 

1 /;=124. 
338—31=307—5 /; (32)— 302— 30=372— 146=126. 

508—126=382+1=383 + 1 =384. 
338—32=306—5 b (33)=301— 30=271— 50=221— 146 

=75. 508—75=433+1=434. 
338—31=307—5 b (31)=302. 
338—32=306—5 b (32)=301— 30=271— 145=126. 

610—126=484+1=485. 

That instead of being half-naked he is arrayed — 

338—32=306—5 /;=301— 50=271— 50=331. 231 
338—31=307—5 h (31)=302— 30=272— 49=223. 

610—223=387+1=388 + 14 h & //=402. 402 
338—32=306—5 /.=301— 50=351— 50=201. 603— 

201=402+1=403. 403 

338—31=307- 5/;=302-50 (76:1)=253. 352 

Very different from the rags he wore when he — 

338—31=307—5 /=302— 30=272. 508—272=236+1=237 



124 


76:2 


apparel 


384 


75:2 


fit 


434 


75:2 


for 


302 


76:2 


a 


485 


77:2 


prince; 



77:2 
77:2 

76:2 

76:2 

75:2 



in 
silk 

and 

satin. 

fled 



824 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



338—32=306—5 ^=301—145=166. 
338—31=307—285 (79:1. 32 to 317)=22— 2 h (285)= 

20. 462—20=442 + 1=443. 
338—32=306—5 (^=301—50=251—145=106—3 b 

(145)=103. 
338—31=307—5 (^=302—30=272. 461—272=189+ 

1=1904 10/' & //=200. 
338_33=.306— 5 <!.=301— 49(76:1)=252— 11 /- & h col.= 
338—31=307—5 ^=302—145=157. 577—157= 

420-^1=421. 



Word. 

166 
443 

103 

200 
=241 

421 



Page and 
Column. 

77:2 



78:2 

77:1 

79:1 
77-1 



to 

London 

to 

'scape 
from 



77:1 imprisonment. 



And that a large part of his wealth was derived not alone from — 



338—32 (79:1)=306— 5 b (312)=301— 162=139. 
338—31 (79:1)=307— 5 ^(31)=302— 30=272. 



139 



77:2 
76:1 



these 
shows; 



But from the lending of money at a high rate and by usurious practices. (The 
reader will note the precision and regularity of the above sentences. Every word is 
the 338th minus 31 or 32, alternated, minus the 5 bracketed words in 31 or 32). 
We read that he doth — 

338—31=307—50 (74:2)=257— 50 (76:1)=207— 146= 

61. 610—61=549 + 1=550. 
338—32=306—162=144. 162—144=18+1=19. 
338—31=307—162=145. 610—145=465+/; col.= 
338—32=306—49=257—30=227. 
338— 3 1 =307—50=257—30=227- 5 /; col . = 
338—32=306—50=256—30=226—50=176- 

-30=227—162=65- 

-50=207—145=61. 



=162. 



-161=46. 598— 



-145=61 + 162= 





550 


77:2 


lend 


=19. 


19 


78:1 


money 


col.= 


(475) 


77:2 


at 




227 


76:2 


a 


122. 


222 


78:1 


big 


163—13. 


13 


78:2 


rate 


2 h col.= 


= 63 


78:2 


upon 


162— 










102 


78:1 


a 




163 


78:1 


commodity 




206 


77:2 


of 



553 



79:2 



paper. 



338—31=307—50=257 
338—32=307—50=257 

61=101 + 1=102. 
338—31=307. 468—307=161 + 1 
338—32=306—50=256—50=206. 
338—31=307—50=257—50=207- 

46=552+1=553. 
338—32=306—50=256—50=206- 

223—5 b col.=218. 
338—31=307—50=257—30=227—162=65. 
338—82=306—49 (76 :1)=257— 30=227. 603—227 

376+1=377+3/' col.=380. 
338— 31=307— 50=257— 50=207— 146=61 -hl62= 

Observe the regularity with which the Cipher moves in the foregoing: 31 — 32 
— 31 — 32 — 31 — 32 — 31 — 32, etc. And note how all the words that are not due 
directly to 306 or 307 are derived from 306 or 307, minus 30 or 50. Commodity is 
a rare word; this is the only time it occurs in this play. It is found in King John 
quite often, where it tells, .probably, the story of Bacon's own money necessities; 
it is found twice in ist Henry IV., and but ten times besides in all the Plays. In 
Measure for Measure, iv, 3, we find the "commodity of paper" alluded to. The 
clown, describing the occupants of the prison, says: 

First, here's Master Rash; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old 
ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds. 

Whereupon Knight says in a foot-note: 



218 


78:1 


with 


65 


78:2 


sure 


380 


76:2 


security 


223 


78:1 


enough. 



SHAKSPERE THE ORIGINAL FALSTAFF. 825 

The old comedies are full of the practice of the usurer — so notorious as to 
acquire him the name of the Invivii paper nwirkant — of stipulating to make his 
advances partly in money and partly in goods, which goods were sometimes little 
more than packages of brown paper. 

The practice is alluded to in ist Henry IV., and there we have even the 
word brown. It is dragged into the wild and senseless talk of the Prince to 
Francis (ii, 4), the drawer: "Your^;-(?w« bastard is your only wear." In act i, 
scene 2, we have a commodity of warm slaves; and in act ii, scene 4, again, we have 
"nothing h\x\. papers, my Lord." It would be curious to find how often coinniodity 
— bro7i.<n — /<?/cr appear together in the same vicinity in the different Plays; but I 
have not the time or space to pursue the subject. 

I will conclude this chapter by remarking that it adds very much to our knowl- 
edge of Shakspere, his character and appearance. It tells us he was gross and 
coarse in his nature and his life; that he was not devoid, however, of a certain 
ready wit; a glutton in his diet and fond of the bottle. That he had many of the 
characteristics of Falstaff, and that he was the model from which the characters of 
Sir John and Sir Tobie were drawn. It also tells us that Bacon was assisted, to 
some extent, in the construction of the Plays by his brother Anthony. It tells us 
further that before Shakspere's health was broken down by his evil courses he 
acted the part of Falstaff on the stage. It also tells us that the Plays drew great 
crowds of delighted people, and greatly enriched all concerned in their production. 
And this is confirmed from historical sources. Nash records that in a short space 
of about three months, in the summer of 1592, the play of Henry VI. was witnessed 
by " ten thousand spectators at least; "' and we are told that Romeo and Juliet, in 
I5g6, " took the metropolis by storm." '^ And this chapter further confirms the 
tradition of Elizabeth's admiration of the character of the fat knight; and it gives 
us further the enthusiastic admiration of the German Minister. And beyond all 
this it tells us that Shakspere had enriched himself by usurious practices, corrob- 
orating the evidence of the numerous suits brought by him against different parties 
to recover money loaned, and the fact that the only letter extant addressed to him 
was touching a loan of money. 

> Halliwell-Phillipps, Ouilines. p. 64. » Ibid., p. 85. 



Note. The numbering in column 2 of page 78 in the facsimile is slightly 
wrong; each number below the 51st should be moved backwards one. The error 
is due to the fact that the word almost, line 7, enclosed in the bracket sentence of 
eleven words, is not counted in as part of the bracket sentence, but as part of the 
text; hence the first word, should, after the bracket sentence, is the 52d word in- 
stead of the 51st, and all the succeeding numbers in the column have to be moved 
backward to correspond. The Publishers. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SWEE T ANN HA Til A WA V. 

One woman is fair; yet I am well; another is wise; yet I am well; another virtuous; yet I am 
■well: but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. 

Much A do, Hi, 2. 

WE pass to another part of our story: the history of Shak- 
spere's marriage. 
I have already quoted one or two lines as to his rabbit-hunting. 
The Bishop of Worcester says: 

538_30=308— 49=259— 161=98. 457—98=359+1 

=360+5^ col. =365. 365 

338-80=308. 533— 308=325+1=226+13 /' col.= 239 
338—50=288—49=239. 577-239=338 + 1=339+ 

3 /, col. =342. 342 

338—30=308—31 (79:1)=277— 162=115— 49 ^ 76:1)= 66 
338—30=308—50=258—50=208—162=46—2// col.= 44 
338-30 (74:2)=288-50 (76:1)=238— 31 (79:1)=207 

—50 (76:1) =157— 145=13— 3 l> (145)=9. 498—9 

=489 + 1=490. 490 

^38-30=308—49=359—162=97+457=554. 554 

338-30=308—49=259—162=97. 97 
333—50 (74:2)=388— 50 (76:1)=238— 31 (79:1)=207 

—145 (76:3)=63— 50 (76:1)=12. 13 
338-30=308-49=359-163=97. 457—97=360+1=361 
538 —30 =3 08 -50=358—1 62=96 -32 (79 : 1 )=64— 

58(80:1)=6. 6 

338=30—308—50=258-49=309—163=47. 47 

3:38-31=307—50=357. 257 

338-49=389. 289 76:3 gluttony. 

Then we are told how he annoyed Sir Thomas Lucy, "an upright and worship- 
ful man." 

333—33 b & //=316-161=155— 59=98— 61 (80:3)=37 

—5/, col. =32. 32 81:1 Upright 

338— 33/^ & //=316-161=155— 57=98. 98, 79:1 and 

338-32/' & /,=31 6-161=155—57=98. 461—98= 

3P,3-t- 1=364. 364 80:2 worshipful. 

A.id we are told that he did — 

826 



76:2 


He 


79:2 


had 


77:1 


fallen 


76:2 


into 


78:2 


all 


76:1 


sorts 


76:2 


of 


77:2 


evil 


76:1 


courses 


76:2 


with 


80:1 


drinking 


77:2 


wassail 


76:2 


and 



SWEET ANN- HA THA IVA V. 



827 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




406 


79:1 


kill 


62 
=423 


80:2 
79:1 


many 
a 


283 


81:2 


deer. 



338—30=308— 161=147— 32=115. 51.S— llo=403 
+ 1=404+2/^ col. =406. 

538—30=308—50=258—162=96—32=64—2 /' col.= 
338—30=308-50=258-162=96. 518—96=422 + 1=423 
.338—30=308—49=259—162=97+186(81:1)= 

And observe how cunningly that word </,vv-, spelled c/fere, is concealed in the 
triple-hyphenated word, hcart-deere-Hany. It is not spelled dear, as it is elsewhere, 
but di'ci-e. See dcare Lord, end scene i, act iii, p. 86, Folio. Deair was one thing 
and dccre another, and here the Cipher required dcerc. 

And we are told that he spent his time — 



-316—32=284—50=234—162=72—2// col. =70. 70 

316—31=285—162=123—4/. & // col. =119. 119 

316—161=155—57=98-61 (80:2)=37— 4 /' & // (61)= 33 
316. 339— 316_23 + 1=24. 24 

■316—32=284—146=138—3// (146)=135— 58 (80:1) 

=77—2 /' col =75. 75 

316—31=285—5 // col.=280. 280 

-177=284+1=285 
98 
37 
-177=284+1 

286 



316-32=284—50=234—57=177. 461- 
316—161=155—57=98. 
316—161=155—57=98—61 (80:2)=37. 
316-32=284—50=234-57=177. 461 
=285 + 17/ col. =286. 



77:2 
81:1 
80:1 

79:2 

80:1 
80:2 
80:2 
81:1 



hare 

and 

rabbit 

hunting 

o'nights 
in 

vile, 

lowr, 
rascally 



80:2 company. 



Observe that rabbit occurs but four times in all the thousand pages of the Plays, 
and but once in this play, and hunting is found but fifteen times in all the Plays, 
and but once in this play. And here is another evidence of the Cipher in the 
Plays: — rascally is found in but six plays out of thirty-seven; and it is found once 
in The Merry Wives, where Shakspere's story is talked about in Cipher, and four 
times in this play, where he is also dealt with. That is to say, rascally appears 
but eleven times in all the Plays, and five of these are where Shakspere is spoken 
•of in the Cipher narrative ! This illustrates that all words are not found on all 
pages, but that each subject begets its own vocabu'ary. 

We are told that — 

:338— 30=308— 162=146— 32=114. 

=--283+2/' col. =285. 
338—30=308—163=145. 
.538— 30=308— 49=259— 1 62=97 - 

=410+1=411. 
338—30=308—162=146—31 (79:1> 

=408 + 1=409+4// & //=413. 
338— 30=308— 49=252— 162=97— 32(791) 

339—65=274+1=275. 
338— 30=308— 162=146-31=115— 5 //=110— 58 

(80:1)=52. 462—52=410 + 1=411. 
,■338—30=308— 49=259— 162=97— 32=65— 2 /;=63. 
538—30=308—162=146-31=115. 
338— 30=308— 162=146— 31=115— 58(81 :1)=57. 

523—57=466+1=467. 



396 114—282 + 1 






285 


80:1 


Will 


145 


78:2 


and 



50=47. 457—47 



115. 523—115 



^65. 



411 



413 



!.0 



76:2 



his 



80:2 brother 



80:1 



are 



411 


80:3 


a 


63 


80:3 


pair 


115 


79:3 


of 



467 



80:2 



most 



82 8 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

338—30=308—162=146—31=115—5 b (31)=110— 

58(80:1)=52. 523—52=471 + 1=472. 472 80:2 pernicious 

338—30=308—163=145. 518—145=373-^1= 374 79:1 villains. 

The reader will observe here that every word grows out of 308 (33S — 30=308), 
and that in every case but one the 308 is modified by deducting 162 from it; that is 
to say, by carrying the 308 to the end of scene third (78:1) and counting upwards; 
while in the case of the one exception referred to, we commence to count one word 
further down, to-wit: from the beginning of scene fourth, instead of from the end 
of scene third. And every one of these 308 minus 162 or 163 is carried again 
through the last fragment of scene fourth, containing 31 words, or 32 if we count 
from the first word of the next scene (act ii, scene i) inclusive. 

And he will observe that the modifications are made by 49, 162, 31 or 32, 
and 57 or 58. }>io\K i\q\s the first fragment 0/ scene j, anA. idl'x?, the last fragment 
of scene j; and 31 or 32 represents the last fragment of scene 4; and 57 or 58, the 
first fragment of scene 2, act ii; and 308 put through these changes yields the remark- 
able sentence above given. 

And then comes the story of his trouble with Ann Hathaway. Here we have 
the name: 

338_C00 (79:1)=138. 462—138=324+1=325 325 78:2 Ann 
338-200 (79:1)=13J— 5 h (200)=133. 462—133= 

329+1=330 330 78:2 Hath 1 

338—200 (79: 1)=138— 13^; col.=125. 125 78:2 a 
338—31 (79:l)=307—3t>=277— 50=227. 598—227 

=371 + 1=372 + 10/; &// col.=382. 382 79:2 way. 

Here it will be observed Ann hath a are all derived from 338 — 200=138; these 
came from the fragment of 7g:i below the end of the second subdivision of the 
column, to the bottom of the column (318 + 200=518, number of words on page); 
while the last word comes from the fraction above the first word of that same sub- 
division to the top of the column. And we will see that same number 277 yielding 
a great many other significant words, as 277, 78:1, twenty (Ann was /rctv/Zr-five); and 
up 79:2, less I hyphen, it is she, etc. 

And it seems she was a widow and her legal name was Whatley, but she was 
generally called by her maiden name. And here we have it again: 

338—32 (79:1)=306— 30=276— 5 /;(32)=271 + 162=433 

— 3/2Col.= 430 78:1 Ann 

338— 200(79:1)=138— 2/. col.=136. 136 79:2 What ) 

338-31 (79:1)=307— 30=277— 50=227— 57 (80:1)= [ 

170. 338—170=168 + 1=169. 169 79:1 lay. S 

And there is a long narrative here about Ann and her troubles. By the same 
root-number 338, modified by deducting the 22b & h in 167, as heretofore, we have 
another reference to her: 

605—167=338—22 b & h (167)=316. 

316_31=285— 2/^ col.=283. 283 79:2 They 

316—31=285. 285 79:2 call 

316— 49 (76:1 )=267+ 163=430. 430 78:1 Ann 
316—50 (76:1)=266— 199 (79:1)=67— 5/^ (199=62. 

,598-62=536+1=537. 537 79:2 What | 

316— 49=267— 200 (79:1 )=67. 468—67=401 + 1= 402 78:1 lay. \ 



S IV EE T A NN HA THA WAY. 829 

Observe the adroitness with which the same Ann, or, as it is disguised, An (430, 
78:1), is made to do double duty once by the root-number 33S, and then by the 
modified root-number 33S— 22 b & /^=3i6, both counts falling on the same word 
from the same starting-point. And the same is true of the word ,;: (125, 78:2). 

And she was a widow ! 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

338—50=288—163=125. 125 78-2 A 

338-50=288-103=125. 125 79:2 widow. 

In the Consistory Court at Worcester, in the marriage register, there is an 
entry in these terms: " 15S2, Nov. 27, William Shaxpere and Anne Whately of 
Temple Grafton." The next day, November 28. 1582, a bond is given to the 
Bishop of Worcester to hold him harmless for "licensing," etc., the marriage of 
William Shagspere and Anne Hathwey. The Shakspereolators have always ignored 
the license entry; and although there was no record of a license to Shakspere to 
wed Ann Hathaway, they would have none of the Whately woman. And Knight 
even goes so far as to give us a picture of the old church at Hampton Lucy," and 
would have us believe that Shakspere and the ''sweet Anne" were married in it, 
although there is not a shred of evidence to sustain the belief; and we have a 
delightful rural picture of the " ribands, rosemary and bay," the " roundels," the 
" vvheaten garlands," the "bride cup" and the bridal banquet; all constructed, as 
most of the Shakspere biography has been, out of the vivid imagination of the 
writer, who sought, in this way, from the beggarly materials afforded him, to create 
a man that would fit into the requirements of the Plays. 

Halliwell-Phillipps is said, in an article in the London Tclegmph, ' to be of the 
opinion that Ann Hathaway never lived in the Hathaway cottage; that is, that she 
was not a daughter of Richard Hathaway, alias Gardner, of Stratford, who died in 
1582. Mr. Rolfe- concurs in this view. Richard Hathaway's will names seven 
children, and Anne was not one of them. The London Telegraph says: 

It is deplorable to have doubts started as to v/iet/ier the Shakespeare Museum 
contains a single genuine relic; whether Anne Hathaway's cottage is not, after all, 
a simple fraud; and Mary Arden's farm a disreputably unhistorical building. . . . But 
will they care to go to the shrine of the great poet if a cloud of doubt surrounds 
some of its most cherished monuments? If everything at Stratford were shown as 
being only doubtfully connected with the Bard? For example, instead of the 
guide-post pointing the way to Anne Hathaway's cottage, it might be sadly truth- 
ful to say, "To the reputed cottage of Anne Hathaway." Mary Arden's farm- 
house ought to be ticketed as an '' uncertain " building, and Shakespeare's tomb in 
the church would have to be pointed out as the tomb "either of Shakespeare or 
somebody else. " 

A. Hall, in a letter to the London Athenicum, 1886, suggests that Richard Hath- 
away, alias Gardner, may have married a widow named Whately, from Temple 
Grafton, and that she might have taken the nam i of Hathaway as liis step- 
daughter. 

^ut here in the Cipher is the explanation of the mystery: Ann had bsan mar- 
ried to one Whatley; and when the bride herself gave her name, Nov. 27, 1582, for 
the marriage license, she gave it correctly, and she was married by that name; but 
the next day, when her farmer friends were called upon to furnish the bond to 
indemnify the Bishop, they gave the lawyer who drew the bond the name by 
which, in the careless fashion of such people, she was generally known. 

' Biography, p. 223. "^ Shakspeariana, Sept., 1886, pp. 430, 431. 

"^Literary World, Boston, Jan. 23, 1886, p. 30. 



8.50 



THE CIPHER l\AKRATIVE. 



Word. 


Pag:e and 

Column. 




(269) 


78:2 


She 


104 


77:2 


is 


309 


78:1 


far 


(271) 


79:2 


gone 


104 


79:1 


in 


147 


77:2 


pregnancy, 



De Quincey says of the marriage bond: 

Trepidation and anxiety are written upon its face. . . . Economy, which 
retards the marriage, is here evidently in collision with some opposite principle 
which precipitates it. How is all this to be explained? Neither do we like the 
spectacle of a mature young woman, five years past her majority, wearing the sem- 
blance of having been led astray by a boy who had still two years and a half to 
run of his minority. 

And we are told that — 

316—31 (79:1)=285— 16 b & h col. =269. 

316—50=266—162=104. 

316—7 b col. =309. 

316—31 (79:1)=285— 14/' col. =271. 

316—50=266—162=104. 

316— 163=153— 6 A & h col. =147. 

This the only time the word pregnancy appears in all i lie goo,ooo -words of the- 
Plays ! And it appears just where it is needed to tell the story of Shakspere's- 
marriage; and it is found side by side with .-/;/;/ — Hath — a — 7i'(n', and ^/;;;/ — 
What — /rfi' (by two different counts); and other still more significant words thaL 
are to follow. I weary of asking the question: — can all this be accident? 
And then we have this description of her: 

338—30=308—31=277. 598—277=321 + 1=322. 322 79:2 She 

338—50=288—146=142—3 /' (146)=139. 462—139= 

323+1=324+6/' & // col. =330. 
338—32=306—50=256—162=94—65=29. 
538—30=308—145=163. 610—163=447+1=448+ 

ll/^&//=459. 
338— ,50=288— 162=126— 64 (79:2)=62. 
338—30=308—145=163. 610—163=447+1=448+ 

2/^ col. =450. 
338—50=288—162=126. 598-126=472+1=473. • 
338-50=288-162=126—57 (79:1)=69. 396-69= 

337+1=328. 
338-50=288— 162=126— 30=96— 64 (79:2)=32+ 

338=370 
338—199=139. 
338—50=288—162=126—65 (79:2)=61. 396—61= 

33.5 + 1=3:36. 
338-30=308-285=23+338=361. 
338— 199(318</79:1)=139. 

338—30=308—285=23. 162—23=139+1=140. 
338—50=288-161=127. 396—127=269+1=270+ 

2 b col. =272. 
338— .50=288— 161=127— 57 '79:1)=70— 57 (80:1)=13. 

523—13=510 + 1=511. 
338—200 (79:1, 317 ./)=138— 65 (79:2)=73. 162— 

73=89 + 1=90. 90 78:1 hair. 

This is the only time red appears in this act; it is found but twice besides in 
this play. And this is the only time color occurs in this act. And this is the only 
time complexion appears in this play, and it is found but four other times in the ten 



330 


78:2 


hath 


29 


80:1 


a 


459 


77:2 


pretty 


62 


80:1 


face 


450 


77:2 


and 


473 


79:2 


a 



328 



80:1 



fair 



370 


80:1 


complexion. 


139 


80:1 


with 


336 


80:1 


a 


361 


90:1 


high 


139 


78:1 


color 


140 


78:1 


and 


272 


80:1 


long 


511 


80:2 


red 



SWEE T A.V.V HA THA IF A V. 



831 



Historical Plays. And it is draiJftred in here by the heels: " It discolors the com- 
plexion of my greatness," says Prince Hal, " to acknowledge that I am weary !" 
And note how it is matched with fair {" (air complexion"). Each is 505 — 167=338 
— 50=288 — 162 (78:i)-=i26; and both words are found in the same column, the one 
carried through the last subdivision of 79:1, the other through the last subdivision 
of 79:2. 

And this statement about Ann's appearance confirms the tradition recorded by 
Oldys, that she was quite handsome; but — 



598—377=321+1= 
88=308+1=309. 



338—30=308—31 (79:1)=277. 

338—200=138—50^88. 396- 

338—199=139—30=109. 

338—199=139. 

338—58 (79:1)=280. 468—280=188+1=189. 

338—200=138-5 // (200J=133. 462—133=32!) + 1= 

330 + 6/^ & //=336. 
338—57 (79:1)=281— 162=119— 50=69. 598—69= 

529 + 1=530. 
338—162=176—50=126. 462—126=336+1=337+ 

.5 /, col. =342. 
338—200=138—50=88. 518—88=430+1=431. 
338—199=139—30=109. 

338—162=176—50=126. 462—126=336+1=337. 
338—31=307—30=277-50=227-50=177+163= 

340—2 /i col. =338. 
338—161=177. 177+163=340. 
338— 200=138— 50=88— 58 (79: 1)=30—1 // col.= 



ford. 

322 


Page and 
Column. 

79:3 


She 


309 


80:1 


was 


109 


78:3 


a 


139 

189 


79:2 

78:1 


gross 
and 


336 


78:2 


vulgar 


530 


79:2 


woman; 


342 


78:2 


with 


431 


79:1 


a 


109 
337 


79:2 

78:2 


good 
heart. 


338 


78:1 


'tis 


340 


78: 1 


true, 


29 


78:2 


but 



338—200=1 38—50=88. 

_31=.567+ 1=568. 
338—163=175—50=125. 

+6/;&// col. =3 14. 
338—199=139—30=109. 



38— 57C79:1)=31. 598- 
462—125=337+1=338 

185—109=76+1=77. 



338—161=177—49 (76:1)=128. 
838—200 (79:1^=138—30=108—65 (79:2)=43. 
43=295+1=296+2=298. 



338- 



338—31=307. 533—307=236+1=227. 
338—31=307—200 (79:1)=107. 338—107=331 + 1= 
338—199=139—30=1 09. 



338—57=281. 
338—32=306—200=1 06. 
338—199=139—30=199- 



■2/1 col. =107. 



338— 33 (79:1)=306— 30=376+162=438. 

338—200 (79:1)=138— 50=88— 58 (79:1^=30. 
338—200=1 38—50=88. 162—88=74+ 1=75. 
338—32=306. 533—306=227+1=228. 



344 


78:3 


loud 


77 


81:3 


tongue 
and 


128 


79:3 


rough 


298 


80:1 


manners; 
a 


227 


79:3 


gossip 


232 


80:1 


with 


109 


78:2 


a 
giddy 


281 


78:1 


head, 


106 


78:2 


the 


107 


78:2 


model 
from 


438 


78:2 


which 

I 
draw 


30 


78:2 


75 


78:1 


Mistress 


238 


79:2 


Quickley. 



And the Bishop says: 



S3'' 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Word. 

338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239. 239 

338—144 (79:1, 317 to 461)= 194— 57=137. 137 

335—31=307-5 /'=302— 285 (79:1)=17— 2 h (285)=15. 



Page and 

Column. 

79:2 

80:2 



She 
follows 

after 
my 

heels 

^veeping 

and 



78:2 sighing; 



462—15=447+1=448. 448 78:2 

338— 31=307— 5 /;=302— 285(79:1^=17— 3/' (285)= 14 78:1 

338—31=307-5 /^=302— 285 (79.1)=17— 5^ & h (285) 

=12. 462—12=450+1=451. 451 78:2 

338— 200=138— 5// (200)=1 33— 3 //col. =130. 130 78:2 

3;iS— 31 (79:1)=307— 5^=302—285=17. 17 78:2 

239—31=307—5 /^=302— 285 (79:1)=17. 462—17= 

445+1=446. 446 

338—200=138—5 h (200)=133— 32 (79:1)=101. 533 

-101=432+1=433. 
338—200=138—5// (200)=133. 
338—31=307—30=277+162=439—3 // col.=436. 
338—31=307—30=277—50=227—50=177+162= 
338—31=307—30=277—50=227—5 b col. =222. 

Appearing is a rare word; it is found but six times in all the Plays; Ttw^/c' occurs 
but three times in this play and but once in this scene; tw*;/^/;/^'- appears but twice in 
this play; big is founa but once in this act. 

And she brought her captive lover along with her; she — 



433 


79:2 


her 


133 


78:2 


waste 


436 


78:1 


appearing 


339 


78:1 


very 


222 


78:1 


big. 



338—200=138. 338—138=200+1=201. 

338— 50=288— 27=261 . 

338—199=139. 338— 139=199+ 1=200+2 /; col.= 

71/(7;r//C(/ occurs but nine times in all the Plays, 
out. There was — 

338—32=306—50=256—57 («0:1)=199— 10/- & //= 
338— 284=54— 3/^=51— 2// col =49. 
338—32=306—30=276—58 (f:0:l)=218. 5C8— 218= 

380+1=381 + 10^ & // col.=391. 
338—31=307—50=257—57 (80:1)=200— 8 /; ol = 
3;^8— 32=306— 50=256. 533—256=277 + 1 =278. 
=257— 57=200— 10 /' & // co:.= 



201 80:1 Marched 
261 78:2 him 

202 80:1 up. 

But all Stratford had turned 



189 
49 

391 
192 
'>78 
190 



79:2 

78:2 



9:2 



79:2 

79:2 



A 
great 

throng 

of 

people 

singing. 



3:38—31=307—50= 

The villagers were having a merry time over poor Ann's misfortunes. 
■ In the last chapter I asked : — Why — if there is no Cipher — did we have ' ' the 
sivin'r man of IVindsor?" But the Cipher then explained the appearance of 
Windsor, and now we see the reason why the unknown man of Windsor was a 
singing man. 

The Bishop complains that he was just sitting down to dinner — 

338—200=138—50=88. 338—88=250+1=251. 251 80:1 dinner- 

when the rabble broke in upon him. 

She asked the Bishop to grant her redress: 

3^8— 200(79:1)=138, 

338—31 (79:1)=307— 50=257. 396 

338—32 (79:1)=306— 58 (80:1)=248, 

4-1=351 + 10 f!' & //=361. 361 79:2 redress. 

The reluctant lover had tried to escape the bonds of matrimony: 





138 


78:2 


Grant 


257=139 + 1= 


140 


80:1 


her 


598 248—350 









SIVEE T ANN HA THA IV A V. 



^33 



338—57=281. 598—281=317+1=318+9 ^ co].= 
338—200=138—3// col. =135. 
338—199=139—30=109—50=59—2 /> col.=57. 
338— 200=138— 64=74— 2 /< (64)=72. 518—72=446 
+ 1=447. 



IVord. 
327 


Page and 
Column. 

79:2 


The 


135 


78 


churlish, 


57 


79:2 


fat 



441 



r9:l 



rogue 



And then we are told, the root-number changing, as heretofore, from 505 — 167 
=338, to 505—167=338—22 /' & // (i67)=3i6, that Shakspere fled. He— 

316—31=285—50=235. 010-235=375 + 1=376. 
316—284 (79:1)=32. 

316—56 (79:1^=260—50=210. 462—210=252+1= 
316—50=266—64 (79:2)=202. 462—202=260+1= 
261 + 3// col. =264. 



376 


77:2 


took 


32 


77:2 


to 


253 


78:2 


his 



264 



78:2 



heels. 



And hid himself among the Welsh, — for Wales was near at hand: 



256 

285 



229 

254 

213 



78:2 

79:2 

78:2 

78:2 



the 
Welsh. 



Coming 
back, 

the 



354 


78:1 


ofificers 


207 


78:2 


take 


284 


78:1 


him. 



316—50=266—59 (79:1)=207. 462—207=255+1= 
316—31 (79:1)=285. 

But he grew hoinesick, and — 

316—50=266—32 {79:1)=234— 5/^ (32)=229. 

31 6— 30=286— 32=254. 

316—30=286—32=254. 462—254=208+1=209+ 

3 //col. =212. 
316—30=286—32=254. 598—254=344 + 1=345+ 

9 d col. =354. 
316—50=266—32 (79:1)=234— 27/; col.=207. 
316—32=284. 

Even the details of the arrest and the struggle of Shakspere are given (by 316) 
with great particularity. The reader will find them embalmed in the latter part of 
column I, page 79, disguised in the arrest of Falstaff by Dame Quickley. Indeed, 
the fragments into which page 79 is divided are so many, and the brackets and 
hyphens are so numerous, that almost every word of the text, in some places, is 
used in the Cipher story. And hence, to accomplish this result, the external story 
was made to tell of the arrest of Sir John Falstaff by Dame Quickley, because of 
money loaned him, with complaints that he had promised to marry her; while the 
internal story tells how Shakspere had borrowed money from Ann Hathaway under 
similar promises, and how she finally settled her claim by marrying her dissolute, 
eighteen-year-old debtor. It is no wonder that he left her, in his last will, his 
" second-best bed." A marriage so made could hardly have been a happy one. 

But the question maybe asked: Why does the Cipher rule in some of the fol- 
lowing instances differ from that found in the preceding chapters ? There the words 
moved right and left from a common center. Here they are found in clusters, all 
in the same column; and the te.\t, the hyphens and brackets are so arranged as to 
bring out sentences almost identical with those found in the te.xt. The answer is, 
that it is only the terminal root-numbers, created by deducting ^Ae ends of scenes 
or Mts, that become new factors to be carried in all directions, to other scenes and 
acts; but where the fragments are inside of, and parts of, scenes, like 284 and 285, 
57 and 58, 64 and 65, the work they perform is confined to the contiguous columns. 

In the description of the arrest we learn that Will was taken by surprise as he 
was loitering about the streets of Stratford. We are told that — 



834 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



316—31=285. 

316—31=285—161=124. 396—124=272 + 1= 

316—31=285—30 (74:2)=255. 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




285 


80:1 


Will, 


273 


80:1 


being 



255 



78:2. unarmed, 



is, after a hard fight, at length taken prisoner. Had he been armed they would have 
found him a dangerous person to handle: 



310-32=284—30=254—162=92. 610—92=518 + 1=519 

But, being unarmed, they are abh- to take him up: 

316—31=285—30=255—162=93. 396—93=303+1=304 

3 1 6—32=284—1 62=1 22 . 396— 1 22=274 + 1=275. 

316—31=285—161=124—50=74. 

316— 31=285— 162=123. 396—123=273+1=274— 

2h col. =270. 
316—32=284—162=122. 396—122=274 + 1=275+ 



77:2 dangerous. 



2/' col. =277. 

310—31=285-30=255. 462-255=207-1-1=208. 

And they take him on — 

310-31=285—162=123—30=93. 610—93=517+1= 

310—31=285 + 162=447. 

310-161=155 + 163=318. 

316—1 62=154—50=104. 533—104=429+1=430. 

316— 65(79:2)=251— 4/' & // col. =247. 

316—31=285—30=255. 

316—31=285—30=255—162=93. 610—93=517 + 1 

=518+2 h col.=520. 
316—31=285—30=255. 
316-162=154—4// col. =150. 
316— 65(79 :2)=251— 30=221— 32=189-r 162=351— 

2// col. =349. 



275 

74 

276 

277 
208 



=518 
447 
318 
430 
247 
255 

520 
255 

150 

349 



80:1 
80:1 

78:2 

80:1 
80:1 



They 
are 
able 

to 



take 
him 

78:2 up. 



77:2 
78:1 
78:1 
79:2 
79:1 
77:2 



80:1 

78:2 

78:1 



A 

warrant 

for 

debt 

in 

an 

action 

upon 

the 

case. 



Observe how all the law phrases corre out by the same root-number — zaarratit 
— debf — action — case. And directly we will see arrested ai my suit. Warrant is 
found but once in each of the plays of Macbeth, Midsummer Nighf s Dream, Love's 
Labor Lost, Mercliant of Venice, All's Well, and jd Henry VI., and not at all in 
Julius Cicsar; but it occurs eleven times in The Merry Wives (where Shakspere's 
story is also told), and four times in act ii of this play, and once in the last scene 
of act i ; or six times altogether in this play. This is the only time debt occurs in 
this play. It is found, however, once in the Epilogue. 

And Ann tells the Bishop, astonished at such a scene of love-making, that — 



338—285=53 

338—284=5 

338—285=53 

338—284=5 

338—285=53 



30 (74:2)=23— 5 b & h (285)=18. 
30 (74:2)=24— 5 b& h (285)=19. 
30 (74:2)=23— 3/' (285)=20. 
30 (74:2)=24— 3 b (285)=21. 
30 (74:2)=24— 2/« (285)=22. 



338—285=53—30 (74:2)=23. 
338—284=54—30 (74:2)=24. 
338—285=53—30 (74:2)=23. 



598—23=575+1= 



18 


79:2 


He 


19 


79:2 


is 


20 


79:2 


arrested 


21 


79:2 


at 


22 


79:2 


my 


23 


79:2 


suit, 


24 


79:2 


for 


576 


79:2 


by 



Page and 

Column. 




79:2 


this 


79:2 


heavenly 


79:2 


ground 


79:2 


I 



S WEE T A NN HA THA IV A V. 835 



Word. 

338—284=54—30 (74:2)=24. 598—24=574+1=575 

+2//(284)=577. 577 

338—285=53—30 (74:2)=23. 598—23=575 + 1=576 

+ 2/i(285)=578. 578 

■ 338—285=53-30 (74:2)=23. 598—23=575+1=576 

+3/5(285)=579. 579 

338—284=54—30 (74:2)=24. 598—24=574+1=575 

+5 ^ & // (284)=580. 580 

338—285=53—30 (74:2)=23. 598-23=575+1=576 

+ 5^& /^(285)=581. 581 79:2 tread. 

Here it will be perceived that 23 and 24 down the column (79:2), modified by 
the brackets and hyphens in 284 and 285, produce the upper part of the sentence; 
and 23 and 24 carried up the same column, modified in the same way, produce the 
latter part of the sentence; and the words flow in regular sequence from iS to 24, 
and again from 576 to 5S1. And it will be observed that the oath taken by Ann 
Whatley, "by this heavenly ground I tread," is much more appropriate to her than 
to Dame Quickley; for Ann was at the Bishop's house, while Dame Quickley had 
Falstaff arrested in the open street, which, certainly, was not " heavenly ground." 

But the sentence flows right on. What does Ann call the " heavenlv ground " 
to witness ? 

338—284=54—50 (76:1 )=4— 3 /> (284 )=1. 
338—285=53—49 (76:1=4—2 // (284)=2. 
338—284=54—49 (76:1)=5— 2 A (284)=3. 
■338—285=53—49 (76:1)=4. 
338—284=54—49 (76:1)=5. 

Here we have perfect regularity; and the words produced are the ist, 2d, 3d, 
4th and 5th of the text. And when we increase the root-number by 50 (4+50=54) 
we have another similar series, showing the accurate adjustment of the text to the 
Cipher. And observe what good service 338 minus 284=^ 54 and 338 iniiius 285^ 
53 perform in this story. We have just seen that 53 and 54 viiniis the common 
modifier, 30, produced "He is cinvshui at my suit, for by this heavenly gnnmd I 
tread; " and minus the other common modifier, 50, we have just got the words. Oh 
my 7?iost worskififul Lord; and now vie turn to 53 and 54 themselves, unmodified, 
and we have the following sentence: 

338—284 (79:1)=54— 5/. & k (284)=49. 
338—285 (79:1)=53— 3 l> (285)=50. 
338—284 (79:1)=54— 3 1> (285)=51. 
333—284=54—2 h col. (285)=52. 
338—285=53 
338—284=54 

Here again the words follow in the regular order of the text, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 
and 54. And when we have exhausted the root-number 338, carried through the 
second subdivision of 79:1 (284 and 285), we fall back on the first subdivision of the 
same column, containing 31 and 32 words, (as we count from the end of one scene 
or the beginning of another), with the following results, which hitch onto the sen- 
tence worked out by the second subdivision: 

338—32=307—50=256—199 (79:1)=57— 2 /' col. =55. 79:1 into 

338— 31=307— 50=2.-)7— 199 (79:1)=58— 2 /> col. 56 79:1 that 



1 


79:2 


Oh 


2 


79:2 


my 


3 


79:2 


most 


4 


79:2 


worshipful 


5 


79:2 


Lord, 



49 


79:2 


he 


50 


79:2 


hath 


51 


79:2 


put 


52 


79:2 


all 


53 


79:2 


my 


54 


74:2 


substance 



836 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 


57 


79:1 


58 


79:1 



338— 32=306— 50==256— 199 (79:1 )=57. 57 79:1 fat 

338—31 (79:1)=307— 50=257— 199 (79:1)=58. 58 79:1 belly. 

Here again the words follow in their regular order; the last sentence ended 
with 54; this begins at 55 and runs regularly to 58. 

And the widow further complains that the " divine William" hath — 

338—32=306—162=144—50 (74:2)=94— 50 (76:1)=44 



42 



r9:2 



eaten 



43 


79:2 


me 


44 


79:2 


out 


45 


79:2 


of 


46 


79:2 


house 


47 


79:2 


and 


48 


79:2 


home. 



—2 b col. =42. 
338—31=307—162=145—50=95—50=45— 

2 b col. =43. 
338-32=306—162=144—50=94—50=44. 
338—31=307—162=145—50=95—50=45. 
338—285=53—5 b&h (284)=48— 2 b col. =46. 
338—284=54—5 b&h (284)=49— 2 b col. =47. 
338—285=53—5 b&h (284)=48. 

Here again the words follow the regular sequence of the text, 42, 43, 44, 45, 
46, 47 and 48. 

Surely if all this is accident it is the most miraculous series of accidents ever 
seen in the world. 

And the widow also says that the young spendthrift has borrowed and spent 
all her money, and has come back from Wales in the ragged and woe-begone con- 
dition which the Bishop described to Cecil: without shirts, stockings, cloak, etc. 
And she grieves over the loss of her money; it is a case of " Oh my ducats ! Oh 
my daughter ! " 

338—65=273. 518—273=245+1=246. 
338—64=274. 518—274=2444 1=245 + 6/^ col.= 
338—65=273. 518—273=245+1=246+6 h col.= 
338— 64=274r-50=224+ 32=256— 3/; col =253. 
3-^8- 64=274— 2 h (64)=272— 50=222+32=254. 
338—65=273—50=223 + 32=255. 
338-64=274—50=224+32=256. 
338—65=274—49 (70 :1)=225+ 32=257. 



246 


79:1 


For 


251 


79:1 


a 


252 


79:1 


100 


253 


79:1 


mark 


254 


79:1 


is 


255 


79:1 


a 


256 


79:1 


long 


257 


79:1 


one. 



The young scamp had wasted the widow's dower 
was enamored of his youth and good looks. And 
story of her wrongs: 

338—57=281—50=231. 598—231=367+1=368. 

338—64=274. 

338—65=273—3 b col. =270. 

338—64=274—1 // col. =273. 

338-65=273— 2 (^ (65)=271— 3 b col. =268. 

338—64=274—3 b col.=271. 

338—65=273—1 // col.=272. 

338—50=288 (79:2)— 64=224. 

338—50=288—65 (79:2)=223. 

338—50=288—64 (79:1)=224. 

295+2/^ (64)=297. 
338_.50=288— 65 (79:1)=223. 

296+2 <^(64)=298. 



in riotous living, while she 
she continues the plaintive 



518—224=294+1= 
518—223=295+1= 

518—224=294+1= 

518—223=295+1= 



368 


79:2 


I 


274 


79:1 


have 


270 


79:1 


borne 


273 


79:1 


and 


268 


79:1 


borne 


271 


79:1 


and 


272 


79:1 


borne; 


295 


79:1 


there 


296 


79:1 


is 


297 


79:1 


no 


298 


79:1 


honestj 



SWEET ANN HA THA IV A Y. 



5 18— 225=293 + 1=294 + 
5 1 8— 224=294 + 1 =295 + 
518—223=295+1=296 + 



338—64=274—49=225. 

5/^ col.=299. 
338—64=274—50=224. 

5/; col. =300 
338—65=273—50=223. 

5/^ col. =301. 
338—64=274—8 l> col. =266. 
338—65=273—2/; (65)=271— 4/' & h col. =267. 
338—64=274—30=244. 518—244=274+1=275. 
338—65=273—30=243. 518—243=275+1=276. 
338—64=274—30=244—2/' (64)=242. 518—242= 

276+1=277. 



Word. 

299 

300 

301 
266 
267 
275 
276 



338—65=273—30=243—2 /;=241. 



)18— 241=277+1=278 

280 



518—244=274+1=275+ 
518—243=275+1=276+ 
518—242= 



338—64=274—30=244. 
5 // col. =280. 

338—65=273—30=243. 

57/ col. =281. 
338—64=274—30=244—2 l> (64)=242 

276+1=277+5 h col. 282. 
338—65=273—30=243—2 b (65)=241. 518—241=; 

+ 1=278+5 // col. =283. 
338—30=308—50=258+31=289—5/' & // col. =284. 
338— 30=308— 50=258+32=290— 5 ^ & // col. =285. 



281 

282 

7 

283 
284 
285 



Page and 
Column. 



79:1 

79:1 

79:1 
79:1 
79:1 
79:1 
79:1 

79:1 
79:1 

79:1 

79:1 

79:1 

79:1 
79:1 
79:1 



in 

such 

dealing. 

I 

have 

bin 

fubbed 

off 
and 

from 

this 

day 

to 
that 
day. 



Observe the exquisite adjustment of the foregoing; the alternations are regular: 
274, 273, 274, 273, 274, 273, 274, 273; and every word is 338 niinus 64 or 65, minus 
30. If there had not been those two bracketed words in 64 or 65 the words would 
not have matched as they do. If there had not been the five hyphenated words in 
the lower part of the column the sentence would have been imperfect. If the 
second " fubbed off" had not been united into one word by a hyphen the Cipher 
would have failed. And why are those words, "fubbed off," printed once with a 
hyphen, and, two words above, printed again without a hyphen ? And here we 
have the very Warwickshire dialect the critics have been talking so much about: — 
the cultured English spoken by "sweet Ann Hathaway." And observe another 
detail: Some of the Cipher words given in previous sentences depended upon a 
sixth hyphen in that second ' ' f ubbed-off . " But if that hyphen instead of being there 
had been, say, on the next line, between thought on, our sentence would have been 
ruined. It is these delicate adjustments of means to ends that must carry convic- 
tion to even the most skeptical. 

And the fair Ann demands satisfaction, since — 

338—65=273—30=243—8/' col. =235. 
338—64=274—30=244—8 /' col. =236. 
338—65=273—30=243—2/ (65)=241— 9 / & // col.^ 
338—65=273—30 243—2 /; (64)=241— 3 / col.= 
338—64=274—30=244—2 b (64)=242— 3 / col.= 
338—65=273—30=243—3 / col. =240. 
338—65=273—30=243—2 b (64)=241. 
338—64=274—30=244—2 / (64)=242. 



235 


79:1 


My 


236 


79:1 


case 


232 


79:1 


is 


238 


79:1 


openly 


239 


79:1 


known 


240 


79:1 


to 


241 


79:1 


the 


242 


79:1 


world. 



And she wants to have him indicted: 



338—64 (79:2)=274— 2 / (64)=272— 50=222. 



223 



r9:l 



To 



-'38 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



Nori. 


Pagre an J 
Column. 




274 


79:1 


have 


244 


79:1 


him 


313 


79:1 


indicted 



292 


79:2 


kiss 


293 


79:2 


me 


294 


79:2 


and 


196 


79:2 


swear 



338—64 (79:2)=274. 

338—64 (79:2)=274— 30=244. 

338— 64=274— 50=g24— 2 b (64)=223— 9 b & h col.= 

The word i)idictcd does not appear anywhere in its proper form in the Plays. 
In this instance it is given as indited (probably in obedience to the requirements of 
the Cipher, as it may be used in the sense of " written," in some other part of the 
story); and it is also found in Othello, iii, 4, spelled again indited. But only twice, 
in any form of spelling, meaning indicted, is it found in all the Plays. Yet here it 
is with arrested, suit, warrant, etc., just where the Cipher narrative needs it. 

The " poet" " deniges " the soft impeachment and tries to brave it out, some- 
what as Falstaff does in the play. Whereupon Ann replies, in the words of 
Mistress Quickley: Didst thou not — 

338—31=307. 598—307=291 + 1=292. 
338—32=306. 598—306=292+1=293. 
338—31=307. 598— 307=291 + 1=292 + 2 J, col.= 
-32=306—50=256—58 (80:1)=198— 2 // col.= 
-65=273—2 l> (65)=271— 57 (80:1)=214— 
14/; & h col. =200. 

-64=274-2 l> (64)=272— 57 (80:1)=215— 
14/^ & // col. =201. 

-65=273—2 /; (65)=271— 57 (80:-l)=214— 
12 b col. =202. 
-32=306-5 /; (32)=301. 
-31=307—5 b (31)=302. 
—31=307. 598—307=291 + 1=292+11 b & /?= 

32=306—2/^ col. =304. 

31=307— 2 /^col.=305. 

32=306. 

31=307. 

3 1 =307—30=277—50=227. 

32=306—30=276—50=226. 
-49=289. 598—289=309+1= 
-.50=288. 598—288=310 + 1=311. 
-50=288. 598—288=310 + 1=311 + 1 A col.= 
-64=274—2 b (64)=272— 57 (80:1)=215— 
12 b col. =203. 

-65=273—2/' (65)=271— 57 (80:1)=214. 
-64=274—2 b (64)=272— 57 (80:1)=215. 
-65=273—57 (80:1)=216. 
-64=274-57 (80:1)=217. 
-49=289—57=232—14 /;=218. 
-65=273—2 b (65)=271— 50=221— 2 li col. =219. 
-64=274-2 /. (64)=272— 50=222— 2 /^ col.=220. 
-65=273—2 b (65)=271. 
-64=274—2 /' (64)=272— 50=222. 
-65 (79 :2)=273— 50=223. 
-64=274—50=244 

-22 b & 7^=316— 32=284— 50=234— 2 // col.= 
-22 b & //=316— 31=385— 50=235— 2 A col.= 



338 

338 

338 

338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 

338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338 
338- 
338 
338 



534—237=307+1- 
534—326=308+1= 
=310. 



300 

301 

202 
301 
302 
303 
304 
305 
306 
307 
=308 
=309 
310 
311 
312 

203 
214 
215 
316 
217 
218 
219 
220 
271 
222 
233 
244 
232 
333 



79:3 

79:2 

79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:3 

79:3 
79:3 
79:3 
79:3 
79:3 
79:2 
79:2 
79:2 
79:3 
79:2 
79:3 
79:3 
79:3 
79:3 



to 

marry 

me ? 

I 

put 

thee 

now 

to 

thy 

Book-oath; 

deny 

it 

if 

thou 

canst. 

And 

did 

not 

goodw^ife 

Keech, 

the 

butcher's 

wife, 

come 

in 

then 

and 

borrow 

a 



SWEET ANN HA THA WA Y. 



839 



338—22 b 
388—22 /' 
338—82=: 
338—31= 
338—32 
338—32=: 
338—32=: 
338—32=: 
338—32= 
338—22 b 
338—22 b 
338—22 b 

249 + 
338—22 b 

250+ 
338—22 b 

250+ 
338—65=: 
338—64=: 
338—65=' 
338—64= 
338—65 
338—64= 
338—31 
338—32=: 
338—31= 



& //=316— 32=284— 50=234. 

& /;=316— 31=285— 50=235. 

306— 5 -i- (32)=301— 57=244— 2 h col.= 

307-5 b (32)=302— 57=245— 2 h col.= 

306—5 b (32)=301— 57=244. 

307— 5 i^(31)=302— 57=245. • 



=246. 

=247. 



533—285=248 + 1= 
533—284=249+1= 
533—285=248+1= 

533—284=249+1= 



306—58 (80:1)=248— 2/^ col. 
306—57 (80:1)=249— 2 h col. 
306—58=248. 
&//=816— 31=285. 
& 7^=316-32=284. 
& 7^=316-31=285. 
2 7^ col. =251. 
& 7/=3 16— 32=284. 
2 7/ col. =252. 

& 7/=31 0—31=285. 534-285=249+1= 
1=251+2 7/ col. =253. 
273—14 b col.=259— 2 b (65)=257— 2 h col. 
74_14/; col.=260— 2/; (64)=258— 2 h col. 
273—14 b col. =259 -2 b (65)=257. 
274—14 /' col. =260— 2 b (64)=258. 
273— 14/; col. =259. 
274— 14/; col. =260. 

307—30=277—14^ col.=263— 2 7^ col.= 
306—30=276—14/; col.=262. 
307—30=277—14 /; col. =263. 



Word. 
234 
235 
242 
243 
244 
245 
246 
247 
248 
249 
250 

251 
9,59, 



And then Ann tells how Will desired her to — 



338—65: 

338—6 

338—65 

338—64 

338—31 

338—32 

338—31 

338—32 

338—57 

338—56 

338—57 

338—56 

338—65 

338—32 

338—31 

338—32: 

338—31 



273— 2/'(65)=271. 
2 /' (64)=272. 



-30=277—2 h col.=275. 

-30=276. 

■30=277. 

50=256. 533—256=277+1= 

=281—2 h col. =279. 

=282—2 7/ col. =280. 



=273. 

:274. 
=307- 
306- 
=307- 
=306- 
(79:1)= 
(79:1)= 
=281. 
=282. 
=273- 
=306- 
=307- 
=306- 
=307- 



-2/5(65)=271— 14<^= 
■22 /' & h col =284. 
-22 /' & 7/=285. 
-20 /; col. =286. 

.30/; col. =287. 



=257. 



Page and 




Column. 




79:2 


mess 


79:2 


of 


79:2 


a 


79:2 


dish 


79:2 


of 


79:2 


prawns, 


79:2 


whereby 


79:2 


thou 


79:2 


didst 


79:2 


desire 


79:2 


to 



79:2 



79:2 



eat 



some; 



253 


79:2 


I 


=255 


79:2 


told 


=256 


79:2 


thee 


257 


79:2 


they 


258 


79:2 


were 


279 


79:2 


ill 


260 


79:2 


for 


261 


79:2 


a 


262 


79:2 


green 


263 


79:2 


wound. 


271 


79:2 


Be 


272 


79:2 


no 


273 


79:2 


more 


274 


79:2 


familiar 


275 


79:2 


with 


276 


79:2 


such 


277 


79:2 


poor 


278 


79:2 


people, 


279 


79:2 


saying 


280 


79:2 


that 


281 


79:2 


ere 


282 


79:2 


long 


257 


79:2 


they 


284 


79:2 


should 


285 


79:2 


call 


286 


79:2 


me 


287 


79:2 


madam. 



And observe another evidence of the adjustment of the number of the brack- 
eted and hyphenated words to the necessities of the Cipher. A little while ago we 
found the word call with the root-number 316 [338— 22 (^ & h (i67)=3i6] thus: 



316—31=285. 



285 



79:2 



call. 



840 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

And now we have the same word call coming out again at the touch of. 338. 
Why ? Because there are precisely 22 bracketed and hyphenated words in the 
column (79:2) above the word call; and the 22 b &, h in the column exactly equalize 
the 22 b & h in the 167 in 74:2 ! Hence we have this result: 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




285 


79:2 


call 


285 


79:2 


call 



505—167=338—22 b & h (167)=316— 31=285. 
505—167=338—31=307—22 b & h in col. =285. 

Another conundrum for the men who believe the sun is an accidental bonfire, 
and man a fortuitous congregation of atoms ! 

There are a few points I will ask the reader to note: First, the many shes and 
hers in this story. We could not have found these in the Cipher story in act i, 
for that entire act of four scenes does not contain a single she and but one hei-. 
And this illustrates that we cannot make everything out of anything. Again, I 
would note the great many rt' J- .• " <; 100," "^dish," "(? green wound," "« widow," 
"(7 pretty face," "« fair complexion," " rz high color," "« gross and vulgar 
woman," " <? loud tongue," etc. We find nothing like this in the preceding chap- 
ters, but where it was needed we have it. 

Some of the words used in the foregoing sentences are quite rare. Throtig is 
found bat twice in this play, and but seven times besides in all the Historical Plays. 
People occurs but three times in this play. Arrested appears but this time in this 
play, and but ten times in all the Plays. Suit is found but four times in this play. 
Heavenly occurs but twice in this play, and this is the only time tread is found in 
this play. And thus we see that even so little a matter as Ann Hathaway 's oath 
could not be constructed without bringing together this array of unusual words. 

It may be objected that the wife of Shakspere would not be called madam under 
any circumstances; but it must be remembered that Shakspere's father had been the 
chief officer of the town; and Shakspere's effort to obtain a coat-of-arms shows 
that he had a lively sense of all the dignities belonging to his family, — and even 
of some that did not belong to it. In 1571, Shakspere's father was made chief 
alderman, and therefore he is entered on the parish records as "magistri Shak- 
spere," and thereafter he is no longer " Johannis Shakspere," but " Mr. John Shak- 
spere." Indeed, a writer on Shakspere's life has remarked that it must have been 
quite an elevation for Ann Hathaway to have married "the high-bailiff's son." 

And Will's father, John Shakspere. is indignant at the whole business. He 
thinks his son has been entrapped by the widow, and that she " is no better than 
she should be." And he calls his son sundry pet names: 

338—31=307—30=277+32=309. 309 79:1 ass 

338. 338 80:1 fool 

He says: 

338—30=308-31 (79:. ,=277. 598—277=321 + 1 

=322. 
338—162=176—1 (^=175. 
338—30=308—31=277 . 
338—161=177—4// col. =173. 

And that she was the — 

338—30=308-31 (79:1)=277. 598—277=321 + 1= 

323+9/; col =331. 331 79:2 eldest 



322 


79:2 


She 


175 


77:1 


was 


277 


78:1 


twenty 


173 


78:2 


five; 



SWEE T ANN HA THA IV A V. 



841 



•338—30=308—285 (79:1)=33. 598—23=575+1= 

338—30=308—284 (79:1)=24. 

338— 50=288— 1 62=1 26 . 523— 1 2(;=39 T + 1 =398 



Word. 
576 

24 

398 



Page and 
Column. 
79:2 



78;! 
80:1 



by 

seven 
years. 

Is it not remarkable,— if this is all accident,— that we have here the very words 
to tell the real age of Shakspere's wife, at the time of her marriage, and the pre- 
cise number of years' difference between her age and that of her husband? A;id 
this is the only time "eldest" occurs in this play? And it occurs just where it is 
needed. And seven is found but twice in this play. Years is disguised in the word 
'ears, the pronunciation of the period slurring the r where it began a word. 

And the matter was much laughed over among the neighbors. It was — 

338-49=289—161=128. 462—128=334+1= 



338—200=138. 468—138=330+1=331. 
338—50=288-161=127. 462—127=335+1= 
5/, col. =341. 



=336- 



335 


78:2 


the 


126 


78:2 


subject 


331 


78:1 


of 


341 


78:2 


many 
a 


128 


79:2 


rough 


330 


78:1 


surmise 



472 


77:2 


not 


144 


78:1 


seem 


=146 


78:1 


reasonable 


280 


79:2 


that 


272 


78:1 


should 


273 


78:2 


lead 



338— 49=289— 1 61 =1 28. 

338—199 (79:1)=139. 468—139=329+1=330. 

For he was but a boy: 

338— 32=306— 285 (79:1)=21— 5 /;& //(285)=16. 16 78:1 boy. 

And, in the opinions of the neighbors, it did — 

338—199=139. 610—139=471 + 1=472. 
338—31=307—285 (79:1)=22— 3 /;(285)=19. 162—19 

=143+1=144. 
338— 32=306— 285(79:1)=21— 5 h (285)=16. 162—16=146 
338—58 (80:1)=280. 

he 

338—30=308—31=277—5 b (31)=272. 
338—30=308—31=277—4 h col. =273. 

her from the 
338—161=177. 523—177=346+1=347. 347 .80:2 road-way 

of 
338— 199=139— 5 // (199)=134— 2 ^ col.=132. 132 77:2 virtue. 

This is the only time reasonable is found in this play, and this is the only time 
Tirtue occurs in this act; and the same is true of seem; this is the only time surmise 
is found in this play; and this is the only time road-way appears in all the Plays t 

But debt was a serious business in that day, for it meant imprisonment for years, 
with, oftentimes, no food provided for the unhappy wretches, who had to depend for 
life upon the charity of such passers-by as might be good enough to fill the basket 
lowered to them from the prison window. And so, with that threat hanging over 
him, "the bard of Avon" accepted the sweet bonds of matrimony. The Bishop — 

338—22 b & //=316— 32^284-5 b (32)=279— 4 h col.=275 78:2 forces 
338—22/^ & //=316— 32=284— 50=234— 32 /' & h col.= 

202. 461—202=259+1=260. 260 78:2 him 

338— 22,^ & /}=316— 32=284— 50=234— 31 <^& // col. =203 78:2 perforce 



842 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



IVord. 
81 

80 


Page and 
Column. 

78:1 

78:1 


sworn 
weekly 


82 


78:1 


to 


83 


78:1 


marry 


433 


79:2 


her. 



the 'iVord " ivci'k/y" 
And s7C'ori/ appears 



to marry; no great hardship, perhaps, for he had, we are told,- 

338—22/2 & >^=3ie-31=285— 5=280— 199 (79:1)= 
338—22 l> & />=316— 32=284-5 /;=279— 199 (79:1)= 
338— 22* & //=316—31=285—5<^=280— 199=81. 

102—81=81 + 1=82. 
338— 22* & //=316— 32=284— 5 *=279— 199 (79:1)= 

80. 162—80=82+1=83. 
338-22* & //=316— 31=285-5 *=280— 50=230— 58 

(80:1)=172. 598—172=426+1=427+6* col.= 

And observe here an astonishing fact: //n's is the only tiine 
appears in all the nine hundred thousand zi'ords of the Flays ! 
but this once in twenty-nine columns of this play, and but two other times in all 
the play. And see how precisely they move together. To even construct so 
simple a phrase of five words as the foregoing, the cryptologist had to import 
one word never used before or afterward in the Plays, and another word used but 
three times in this play. And then observe that sentence, " sworn weekly to 
marry her." Every word is 505 — 167=338 — 22* & //^3i6 — 31 or 32 (regularly 
alternated) w/wwj- the 5 * in 31 or 32. And four of the words are found in that 
same fragment of a scene at the top of 78:1, and two of them are 80 and 8x down 
from the top of the fragment, and two of them are So and 81 up from the end of 
the fragment ! 

And then we have the whole story of the precipitate marriage. It must take 
place at once, or " the divine William " might fly again to Wales; but it was neces- 
sary to publish a notice of the bans three times in advance of the marriage: 

505—167=338—50 (74:2)=28S— 31 (79:1)=257. 

462-257=205 + 1=206. 
505—167=338—32 (79:1)=306. 
,505— 1 67=338— 50=288— 32 (79 : 1 )=256. 
505—167=338—32 (79;1)=306— 5 * (32)=301. 
50,5—167=338-50=288—31 (79:1)=257— 5 * (31)= 

252. 462— 252=210+1=211 + 5* col. =216. 216 78:2 three 

.50.5—167=338—30=308—32 (79:1)=276. 462—276 

=186+1=187+*= 
505-167=338-162=176. 
505— 167=33 ■i—50=288— 32 (79:1)=256. 468—256 

=212 + 1=213. 

The word publish is quite rare: itis found but eight times in all the Plays,, 
and but once in this play; and notice is comparatively rare: it occurs but ten times 
in all the Histories, and but once in this play; and adr'anee is also a rare word: it is 
found but twelve times in all the Histories, and but this time in this play ! Here, 
then, are three words, publish — notice — ad^'ance — (together with the compara- 
tively rare words threi — times) — not found anywhere else among all the many thou- 
sand words of this play; and yet all brought together on the same page (page 78),, 
and all tied together in a bunch by the same number: 

338—31= 
338—32= 
338—32= 
338—31= 



206 


78:2 


Must 


306 


78:2 


publish 


256 


78:2 


the 


301 


78:2 


notice 



(187) 


78:2 


times 


176 


79:2 


in 


213 


78:1 


advance 



78:2 


Must 


78:2 


publish 


78:2 


the 


78:2 


notice 



Page and 
Column. 




78:2 


three 


78:2 


times 


78:2 


advance. 



SWEE T ANN HA THA WA Y. 843 



338—31= 
338—32= 
338—32= 

- And, more than all this, these significant words are thus bunched together, 
just where we have found all the other significant words that tell the story of Shak- 
spere's marriage ! And, historically, we know that the marriage was peculiar, to 
say the least; and that a bond had to be given to avoid the necessity of calling the 
bans more than once. 

And we have here, also, the whole story of the bond. Here is the bond: 

338—146=192—3/' (146)=189. 457—189=268+ 

1=269+6// col. =275. 275 76:2 bond 

John Shakspere offered to go upon it, but he was not considered sufficient, and 
at last two friends of the family are found; and sweet Ann Hathaway enters into 
history, to be sung by poets and idealized by fools. 



I r-t t. 



r 



. / 



Urt^y-^^^ 



I 



CHAPTER XIX. 

BA CON VEK WHELMED. 

News fitting to the night, 
Black, fearful, comfortless and horrible. 

King Jolin^ r', b, 

MY publishers write me that the book now contains over 900 
pages, and that the edition dc luxe " looks like a Chicago Direct- 
ory ! " And, therefore, fascinating as the story is to me, I must con- 
dense the remainder of it into the smallest possible compass. I regret 
to leave the history of Shakspere unfinished. I have worked out frag- 
ments of it all the way through to the end of 2d Henry IV. It gives 
in detail his conversations with his father, his dread of being 
hanged, his flight to London, the poverty of his wife and children, 
his own wretchedness and distress in the metropolis, his begging 
on the streets in mid-winter with the tears frozen on his face; his 
being relieved by Henslow. I will try to give fragments from 
these narratives, if I have time and space after finishing the story 
announced in the prospectus of my publishers; if not, the particu- 
lars will have to go into some future work. 

We turn back to the beginning of scene third (76:1), and we 
have to use now a Cipher-number different from that 505 — 167= 
338 which has given us so much of the foregoing narrative; but 
even with so different a number we shall find the text responding 
with sentences just as significant as those already given. And the 
reader will note that, although we go over the same ground which 
gave us the Shakspere story, derived from 338, we flush always an 
entirely different covey of game, in the shape of Cipher words. 

Bacon says: 



505—29 (74:2^=476— 457=19— 9 & col.=10. 
505—449=56—5 // (449)=51. 603—51=552+1= 
505—146 (76:2)=359. 498—359=139+1=140. . 

844 





Page and 




Word. 


Column. 




10 


76:1 


On 


553 


76:2 


hearing 


140 


76:1 


this 



BA CON O VER WHELMED 



845 



505— 161=344— 30 (74:2)=314. 508—314=194+1= 

195+13 /^=208. 

-161=344—284=60—10 b (284)=50. 248—50 

=198 + 1=199 + 2 /; & h col. =201. 

-449=56-50=6. 457—6=451 + 1=452. 

-49=456—146=310. 498—310=188+1=189. 

-449=56—1 h col.=55. 

-49 (76:1)=456— 162 (78:1)=294. 

-449=56—5 h (449)=51. 

-29 (74 :2)=476— 447=29. 508—29=479+1= 

-29 (74:2)=476. 498—476=22+1= 23. 

-449=56—50=6. 

-49=456— 146=310— 50 (76:1)=260. 

-49 (76:1)=456— 448 (76:1)=8— 5 h (448)=3. 

603—3=600+1=601. 

-146=359—305 (78:1)=54. 

-49(76:1)=456. 456—284 (74:1)=172. 

-50=455—146=309—3 /- (146)=306. 468—306 

=162+1=163+20 b&b col. =183. 
;_449=56. 

-449=56. 508—56=452+1=453. 

-146=359. 448-359=89 + 1=90 + 3// col. =93. 

-146=359—49=310. 448—310=138+1=139. 

-146=359—161=198. 610—198=412-^-1=413 

+ 11 /, & //=424. 
1—49=450-30=426. 462—426=36+1=37 + 

21 b col. =58. 



505 

505 
505 
505 
505 
505 
505 
505 
505 
505 
505 

505 
505 
505 

505 
506 
505 
505 
505 

505 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




208 


75:2 


heavy 


201 


74:2 


news 


452 


76:2 


I 


189 


76:1 


was 


55 


76:2 


'erwhelmed 


294 


77:2 


with 


51 


76:2 


a 


480 


75:2 


flood 


23 


76:1 


of 


6 


75:2 


fears 


260 


75:2 


and 


601 


76:2 


shame. 


54 


77:2 


I 


172 


74:2 


saw 


183 


78:1 


plainly 


56 


76:2 


all 


453 


75:2 


the 


93 


76:1 


perils 


139 


76:1 


of 


424 


77:2 


my 


56 


78:2 


situation. 



This is the only time o' crzv/w lined appears in this play; it is found but four 
other times in all the Plays ! Flood occurs but three times in this play; plainly 
appears but twice in this play, and but six times besides in all the Histories. 
Perils is found but twice in this play, and but once besides in all the Histories; 
and but four times besides in all the Plays ! And this is Ike only time ''situation " 
is found in all the Plays ! 

505—146=359. 577—359=218 + 1=219. 

505—145=360. 448—360=88—1=89. 

505—145=360—3 b (145^=357. 

505—146=359—3 /' (145)=356. 

505—49=456. 

505—145=360—305=55—2 // col. =53. 

505— £0=475— 447 (75:1)=28. 

505— 30=475— 161=314- -247 (74:2)=67— 7/^ col.= 

505—145=360—50=31 ). 498—310=188+1=189. 

505—146=359. 498—359=139+1=140. 

Here we have another combination of Sltak'st-spur, besides the fourteen given 
elsewhere; and here we have another mode of counting, besides the ones already 
given, whereby apprehended is reached. And this is the only time apprehended appears 
in this play, while Shak'st is found but twice: once here, and once in The Winter's 
Tale, iv, 3; and while the Concordance gives the word very properly in both 
instances, as shakest. the Folio gives it in both instances as s ha k'st; because shak'st 



219 


77:1 


I 


89 


77:1 


knew 


357 


77:1 


very 


356 


77:1 


well 


456 


75:2 


that 


53 


77:2 


if 


28 


75:2 


Shak'st \ 


60 


75:1 


spur S 


189 


76:1 


was 


(140) 


76:1 ai 


)prehende< 



846 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



could be combined here with spur, and with the same word spur in The Winter's 
Tale (iv, i) to give the sound of Shakespere's name, while shakest could not ! Thus 
we find everywhere evidences of the Cipher. 



505—146=359. 448—359=89 + 1=90. 

505—145=360—193=167. 

505—449=56—50 (74:3)=6— 5 // (449)=1. 603—1= 

602+1=603. 
505—146=359—50=309—4 // col. =305. 
505—449=56—50=6. 
.505-449=56. 168—56=106+1= 
505—146=359. 

505—146=359—305=54—2 h col.=52. 
505—146=359—3 b (146)=356— 30=326. 
505—146=359—161=198—10 b col. =188. 
.-05— 146=359— 161=197. 610—197=413 + 1=414 

+ 11 /;& //col. =425. 
505—145=360. 498—360=138 + 1=139. 
.•,05—145=360—30=330. 498—330=168+1=169. 
505—146=359—'^ 

31=253+1 

505—146=359—304 (78:1)=55— 20 b & h (304)=85. 
505—146=359—304 (78:1)=55— 20 b & h (304)=35. 

610—35=575 + 1=576+2 h col.=578. 
505—146=359—305 (78:1)=54— 20 b& h (305)=34. 

610—34=576+1=577+2 // col.=579. 
505—146=359-29 (74:2)=330— 3 b (146)=327. 

498—327=171 + 1=172 + 10 /' & h col.=182. 
505— 49=456— 50=406— 304 (78 :2)=102. 



,^0=329—50=279—248=31. 28 
=254. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




90 


76:1 


he 


167 


76:2 


will 


608 


76:2 


be 


305 


77:1 


as 


6 


76:3 


clay, 


107 


78:1 


or 


359 


77:1 


rather 


52 


77:3 


tallow, 


326 


76:1 


in 


188 


77:2 


the 


425 


77:2 


hands 


139 


76:1 


of 


169 


76:1 


that 


354 


74:1 


crafty 


35 


77:2 


fox, 


578 


77:2 


my 


579 


77:2 


cousin 


182 


76:1 


Seas \ 


102 


77:2 


ill. S 



What contempt for the corpulent "bard of Avon" is expressed in that phrase, 
"he would be as clay, — or rather tallow, — in the hands of," etc.! This is the only 
time y^x occurs in this play; and this is the only time crafty is found in this play; 
and this is the only time tallon) is found in this play, and it occurs but five other 
times in all the Plays ! And this is the only time clay appears in this play. And 
this is the only time seas is found in this play. So that in this short sentence there 
are five words found nowhere else in this play; in other words, this sentence could 
not be constructed anywhere else in this play; nor would all these words come out 
at the summons of any other number. And herein we have also still another com- 
bination forming the name of Cecil. 

The story proceeds: 



505—146=359—3 b (146> 
505—145=360—50=310. 
505—146=359—50=309. 
505—145=360—50=310. 

2// col. =191. 
,505_1 46=359— 50=309 . 

+2 h col. =193. 
505__145=360— 50=310— 50 (76:1) 

=248+1=249. 



356—50=306. 

498—310=188+1=189. 
498—309=189+1=190. 
498—310=188+1=189+ 



498—309=189+1=190 



=260. 508—260 



306 


77:1 


It 


189 


76:1 


was 


190 


76:1 


ten 


191 


76:1 


to 


192 


76:1 


one 


249 


75:2 


the 



BACON 0]'ER WHELM ED. 



847 



505—146=359—50=309. 577—309=268+1=269. 
505—146=359—50=309—10 h & h col. =299. 
505—146=359—3 h (146)=356— 193 (75:1)=163— 49 

=114— l/^col.=113. 
505—146=359—50=309—11 b col. =298. 
505— 146=359— 30=329— 1 62=1 67 . 603—1 67=436 

+ 1=437+3/^ col. =440. 
505—30=475—193=282—49=233—22 b & h col.= 
505— 145=;!60— 248=112— 23^ (248)=90— 10 b col.= 
505—145=360—50=310—4 b col. =306. 
505—145=360—3 b (146)=357. 603—357=246+ 1= 

247+6 h col. =253. 
505—145=360—248=112. 284—112=172+1=173. 
505—146=359—3 /' (146)=356— 161=195. 603—195 

=408+1=409+3 b col =412. 
505—145=360—50=310 . 
505— 146^359-163=196-13 b & h col. =183. 
503_146=.359— 161=198— 10 b col. =188. 
503—146=359- 193=166— 15 b & /i=151. 284—151 

=133+1=134. 
505—146=359-163=196. 

505—146=359—162 (78:1)=197— 10 b col.=187. 
505—146=359—3 /' (146)=356. 
505—146=359—193 (75:1)=166— 15 b & h (193)=151. 

508— 151=357+1=358+6/' col. =364. 

See how precisely these words come out by the same root-number. 

This play of Measure for Measure, and its irreligious tendencies, are alluded to 
in another part of the Cipher narrative, growing out of 505—167=338. I have 
stated on page 762, «;//<•, that Cecil gave this play, and the play of Richard I L, 
to the Bishop of Worcester to " anatomize." And here we have the name of the 
play again by a different root-number from the above: 
338— 30=308-50=258— 57 (79 : 1 )=201— 14 

\\b &. h col. =187. 
338-30=308-50=358-163=95-58 (79:1)=37- 

2/- col. =35. 
338—30=308—163=145. 508—145=363+1=364. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




269 


77:1 


whorson 


299 


76:2 


knave 


113 


76:2 


will 


298 


77:1 


tell 


440 


76:2 


in 


21 1 


75:3 


self 


■ 80 


74:1 


defence 


306 


76:2 


and 


253 


76:3 


for 


173 


74:1 


his 


412 


76:3 


own 


310 


76:2 


security 


183 


77:2 


that 


188 


77:3 


the 


134 


74:1 


play 


196 


77:2 


of 


187 


77:'^ 


Measure 


356 


77:2 


for 


364 


75:2 


Measure — 



187 

35 
364 



77:2 Measure 



79:3 
75:3 



for 
Measure. 



Consider the careful adjustment that was necessary to make these words come 
out by these two different kinds of counting from the same starting-point ! Notice 
that 197 down 77:2 produces Measure, and 201 down the same column, by the 
arrangement of brackets and hyphens, produces the same word Measure; and 151 
up 75-2 produces Measure, and 145 up the same column produces the same word, 
Measure If there had been a single bracket or hyphen more or less in either one 
of these four countings, the Cipher would have failed to produce, two different 
times by two different numbers, the name of the play Measure for Measure ! 

And the Bishop said,— speaking of this last Measure for Measure and Richard 
the Second,— Xha.i he believed there were utterances in both hostile to the Christian 
rello-ion. 'l have shown, on pages 208 and 209, ante, what those utterances were. 
And here we have the name of Richard the Second, growing, like the last Measure 
for Measure, out of 505—167=338. The Bishop speaks of — 



848 



THE CIPHER NAKRA TIVE. 



338—30=308—49=259—162=97—32=65—58 (80:1)= 
338—30=308—49=259—1 62=97—32=65—58=7 + 

461=468. 
338—30=308—49=259—162=97—32=65—58=7. 
338—30=308—49=259—161=98—31=67—5 b (31)= 

62—2 h col =60. 
338—30=308—49 259—161=98—31=67—5 /;=62. 

489—62=427+1=428. 
338—30=308—49=259—162 97—31=66. 
338-30=308+162=470— 468 (col. 78:1)=2. 462—2 

=460+1=461. 
338—30=308—163=145—31=114—5 b (31)=109— 

65 (79:3)=44. 462—44=418+1=419. 
338—30=308—49=259—162=97—2 h col. =95. 
338—30=308—163=145—31=114. 523—114=409 + 

1=410+2-^=412. 



Word. 
= ( 

468 

7 

60 

428 
66 

461 

419 
95 

412 



Page and 
Column. 



that 



80:2 noble 

80:2 composition^ 



78:2 

81:1 
79:2 

78:2 



the 

play 
of 

King 



78:2 Richard 

78:3 the 



80:3 



And the Bishop says, after reading these Plays, that he 

338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 162=77. 162—77= 

85+1=86. 86 

338—50=288—49 (76:1)=239— 162=77— 32=45. 45 

338—50=288—50 (76:1)=238— 162=76— 62 (80:1)=14. 

186—14=172+1=173. 173 

338—50=288—49 (76 : 1)=239— 1 62=77—32=45. 

339—45=294 + 1 =295 . 395 

338— 50=388— 49=239— 1 62=77— 32=45. 1 62—45 

=117+1=118. 
338—50=388—49=239—162=77—4/; & // col.=73. 
333—50=388—49=339—162=77—31=46. 163+46=209 
338—50=288—50=238—162=76—31=45—2 /' col.= 
338—50=288—49=239—162=77. 32+77=109. 
338—50=288—49=239—162=77. 
338—50=288—50=238—162=76—62 (80:2)=14— 4 

^&/i(62)=10. 186—10=176+1=177. 177 



(D- 



78:1 

78:2 

81:2 
80:1 



Second. 



perceived 
much 

in 

these 



118 


78:1 


plays 


73 


81:1 


that 


209 


78-1 


satisfied 


43 


79:2 


me 


109 


79:1 


that 


77 


77:3 


his 



81:2 purpose 



610—97=513+ 

516 
57(80:1)=20+185=205 
468—76=393+1 



338_49=389—30=259— 162=97. 

1=514+2// =516. 
338—50=288—49=239—162=77- 
338—50=388- 50=338—162=76. 

=393+1/^=394. 394 

338—50=288—49=239. 77—32=45. 45 

338— 30=308— 49=259— 162=97— 2 /^ col.=95. 95 

338—50=288—49 (76 :1)=339— 163=76. 523—76= 

447+1=448+2/; col. =450. 450 

338— 30=308— 163=145— 31=114. 449—114=335 

+ 1=336. 336 

And the Bishop came to the conclusion that these — 

338—1 h (167)=337— 30=307— 49=258— 31 (79:1)= 

227— 5^ (31)=233+ 163=384. 384 

338—1=337—30=307—49=358—31=327. 227 



77:2 
81:2 

78:1 
79:2 
78:2 

80:2 

76:1 



76:1 
78:1 



IS 

the 

destruction 

of 

the 

Christian 

religion. 



great 
and 



BACON OVERWHELMED. 



849 



338—1=337—30=307—49=258—31 (79:1)=227— 5 h 
(31)=222. 162+222=384—11 b & h col.=373. 

338—1 (76:2)=337— 304 (78:1)=33— 20 b^ h (304)= 
13. 462—13=449 + 1=450. 

338— 1(76:2)=337— 50=28"— 49=238— 161=77— 49 
=28+458=486. 

are the work of a gentleman who is at heart a pagan: 

338— 50=288— 49=239— 1 62=77. 
338—30=308—50=258—162=96—56 (79:1)=40. 

598—40=558 + 1=559. 
338—50=288—49=239—163=76—62 (80:2)=14 

—1 // col. =13. 13 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




373 


78:1 


much 


450 


78:2 


admired 


486 


76:2 


Plays 


77 


78:2 


work 


559 


79:2 


gentleman 



81:2 



pagan 



Observe how many significant words come out of the same numbers: 77, or 
its alternate, 76, produces /tvrt'/i^^^/ — much — in — these — plays — that satisfied me 
that his purpose — destruction — of — Christian — ivork — pagan; vihiXe 96 and 97, 
"which are just 20 more than 76 and 77, due to the fact that between the common 
modifiers, 30 and 50, there is a difference of 20, produce is — nob/e — composition 



-gentleman. 



And observe the remarkable character of the words growing out of these roots. 
Composition is a rare word; it is found but once in this play, and but fourteen times 
besides in all the Plays. Perceived is found but once in this play, and but twelve 
times besides in all the Plays. And j-rt//.*y;(v/ appears but once in this play, and but 
thirteen times besides in all the Histories. And destruction is found but once in 
this play, and but thirteen times besides in all the Histories. And this is the only 
X\mz pagan is found in this play, and it is found but eight times besides in all the 
Plays. And Christian is found but twice in this play. And this is the only time 
religion is found in this play. Let the reader compare the number of times the 
word second appears in this play with the number of times it is found in Much Ado, 
Love's Labor Lost, Tivelfth A'ight, etc. It is not found at all in several of the 
Plays. And this is the only time admired occurs in this play, and it is found but 
twice besides in all the Histories. And Measure occurs but once in this play 
besides the two instances given above. And not only do these remarkable 
words grow out of the same primary root-number, but out of the same modification 
of the primary root-number, and even out of the same terminal Cipher-number! 
And almost every word is found nowhere else in this play, and rarely anywhere 
else in all the Plays ! 

And the Bishop praises the literary merit of the Plays highly. 
language is most choice — 

338—50=288-49=239. 284—239=45 + 1=46. 
338— 30=308— 163=145— 31=114— 57 (80:1)=57. 

523—57=466+1=467. 
338—50=288—50=238. 468—238=230+1=231 + 

15 b & h col. =246. 



46 
467 
246 



74:1 
80:2 
78:1 



He says the 

Language 

most 

choice. 



And that in this particular they have had — 

338—31=307—143 (318 d 79:1)=164. 462—164=298 

+ 1=299 299 

338—31=307—143=164. 164 



78:2 
78:2 



No 
equal 



850 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



338—49=289—30=259—162=97. 
538— 50=288— 49=289-162=77. 

=344+6/; col. =350. 
338—50=288—49=239—162 

\h col.=J2. 
338—50=288 -49=239—1 62=7 7. 
338—50=288—49=239—162=77 + 185 

2/. col. =260. 
338—50=288—49=239—162=77—32=45. 
338—50=288—49=239—162=77—32=45—5 h (32)= 

40. 339—40=299 + 1=300+2=302. 



462-97=365-1-1= 
420—77=343+1 



=77—64 '79:2)=13- 



=262— 



Word. 

=366 
850 

12 

77 

260 
45 

802 



I'ag'e and 
Column. 

78:2 

81:2 

77:1 
79:2 

81:2 
79:2 

80:1 



in 

England 

since 
the 

time 
of 

Gower. 



Observe again how many significant words here grow out of 77, besides the- 
long catalogue already produced by it. 

It must be remembered that in 1597 the literature of England, in its own- 
tongue, was very limited. The poet alluded to, John Gower, was born in York- 
shire about 1325, and died in 140S. His Confessio Aniantis was written in English, 
in eight books, it is said, at the request of Richard 11. Hallam says of him: " He 
is always sensible, polished, perspicuous, and not prosaic, in the worst sense of the 
word." He seems to have been a favorite of the Bishop. And the Bishop reit- 
erates his conviction, after reading these Plays, that Shakspere has not the power 
of brain to have produced them : 



505—167=338—49=289—82=257. 468-257=210 

+ 1=211 + 12 /> col. =223. 223 

505—167=338—49=289—32=257. 577—257=320 

+ ]=321. 321 77:1 



78:1 enough 
brain 



505—167=338—49=289—32=258. 468- 
+ 1=211 + 15/; & h col. =226. 



:?10 



226 



78:1 



power. 



Observe how precisely these significant words match; they come out of the 
same number; except that 31 and 32 alternate, as in other examples given hereto- 
fore. 

And the Bishop also reads the play of Richard /he Third. Here we have it: 



231 



78.1 



King 



338—50=288—50=238. 468—238=230+1= 
338— 50=288— 50-=238— 31 (79:1)=207— 163=44. 

462— 44=41 8 -h 1=419. 419 78:2 Richard 

338—50=288—50=238. 238 76:1 the 

338— .50=288— 30=258. 462—258=204+1=205. 205 78:2 Third, 

But let us recur to the story of Bacon's feelings when he heard the bad news. 
He says he knew that if Shakspere was taken and he confessed the truth (as he 
believed he would), he was a ruined man. In that event — 



505—50=455—31=424. 462—424=38 + 1=39 + 

5 h col. =44. 44 

505—30=475—146=329. 447—329=118+1=1 19+ 

11,^ col. =130. 130 

505-30=475—146=329—3 b (146)=326. 462—326 

=136 + 1=137+4 h col. =141. 141 



78:2 


All 


75:1 


my 


78:2 


hopes 



BACON OVERWHELMED. 



851 



505—145=360. 498—360=138+1=139. 
505—146=859—3 b (146)=356. 
505—31=474. 603—474=129+1=130. 
505—49=456—161=295. 603—295=308+1=309 + 

10 b & h col.=319. 
505—30=475—50 (76:1)=435. 508—425=83+1=84. 
505—449=56—14/; (449)=42-l //=41. 
505—146=359—3 b (146)=356. 498—356=142 + 1= 

505—161=344—31 bs. It col.=313. 

505—146=359—3 /;(146)=356. 448—356=92+1= 

93+14 /;&/i col. =107. 
505—146=359—32 (79:1)=327— 3 /; (146)=324— 50= 

And again observe how rare some of these words are: This is the only time 
rising is found in this play, and it occurs but thirteen times besides m all the Plays ! 
Coiiniicn-cvealth is found three times in this play, and but nine times in all the Com- 
edies, and but four times in all the Tragedies. Blasttui appears but once in this 
play, and but nine times besides in all the Plays ! Hopes is found but three other 
times in this play. 

And Bacon says: 



Word. 


Pag^e and 
Column. 




139 


7K;1 


of 


356 


76:1 


rising 


130 


76:2 


to 


319 


76:2 


high 


84 


75:2 


office 


41 


76:2 


in 


143 


76:1 


the 


313 


78:2 


Common 
wealth 


107 


76:1 


were 


274 


77:2 


blasted. 



505—31=474. 474 76:2 I 

505— 30=475— 58 (80:1)=417. 417 80.2 am. 

505—30=475—58=417. 523— 417=106+. =107. 107 80:3 not 

505—32=473—58=415. 498—415=83+1=84+ 

11 /; col. =95. 95 76:1 an: 

505— 31=474— 4 /z col. =470. 470 79:2 impudent 

505—31=474. 474 79:3 man 

505—32=473—58=415. 41.-, S0:2 that 

505—30=475. 475 79:2 will 

505—49=456—50=406. 603—406=197+1=198. 198 76:2 face 

505—32=473—50=423—58 (80:1)=365. 603—365 

=238+1=289. 239 76:3 out 

505—49=456. 603—456=147 + 1=148. 148 76:2 a 

505— 58 (80:1)=447. 463—447=15 + 1=16+24=40. 40 80:2 disgrace 

505— 81=474— 27/; & //col. =447. 447 79:2 with 

505—32=473—30=443—57=386—30 / & h col. =356. 356 80:2 an 

505— 32=473— 50=423— 33 ^ col. =400. (400) 79:3 impudent 

,505— 49=456. 603— 456=147 + 1=148+16 /;&// col =164 76:3 cheek, 

50.5—31=474—50=424—26 /; & // col. =398. 398 79:2 sauciness; 

505—83=473—163=311. 311 77:2 and 

505— 32=473— 4// col. =469. 469 79:2 boldness. 

And here Bacon repeats the very language he used in 1594 in a letter to Essex 
(see page 273, ante): "I am not an impudent man that would face out a disgrace.'" 

And these are the only times impudent occurs in 2d Henry IV., and it is found 
but seven times besides in all the Plays ! And these are the only occasions when 
sauciness is found in this play, and it occurs but four times besides in all the Plays. 
Yet here both are found repeated twice in the compass of a few lines. And the 
word disgrace is found but twice in this play. 



852 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



And Bacon grieves at the disgrace his exposure will bring upon the memory 
of his father. He says it — 



505-50=455—33=423. 533—433=110+1=111. 
505—30=475—50=435—396 (80 : 1 )=39. 
505—50=455—32=433. 
505—30=475—50=425—58 (80:1)=367. 523-367= 

156+1=157+3/, col. =160. 
505— 31=474— 33/!' col. =443. 
505—31=474—50=434—163=362—4 // col. =258. 
505-31=474—50=434—57=367—4 h col.=363. 
505-33=473—5 h (33)=468. 
505—30=475. 523—475=48+1=49. 
505—30=475—50=435—4// col.=431. 
505—31=474—50=434. 534—434=1 10+1=111 + 

37<icol.=138. 
50,-,— 31=474— 39 b ^ h col. =435. 
505—33=473—30=443—57 (80:1)=386— 4// col.= 
505—30=475- 50=435— 10 /' col. =415. 
505—31=474. 533-474=59-11=60. 
505—31=474. 598—474=134+ 1=125. 
505— 31=474— 37 /^ & h col. =447. 
505—31= 474. 598—474=134+1=135+4 h col.= 
505—31=474—50=434—163=363. 
505-162=344—7 h col. =337. 
505—30=475—396 (80:1)=79. 461-79=382+1= 
505—31=474—9 b col. =465. 
505— 33=473-30=443— 5 /nBl)=438— 7// col.=431. 

And what is it that would so distress the widow of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who, as 
■we have seen, was preeminently a religious lady? Here is the statement: 

505— 30=475— 50=435— 396 (80:1)=29. 533—39= 

494+1=495+4/' & h col. =499. 
50.5—31=474—50=434-57=367. 
505—30=475—58 (80:1)=417. 
505— 31=474— 58=.416. 
50.5—31=474—50=434—30=394—58=336- 

36/^ col. =310. 
50.5-31=474— 63(80:2)=41 3-1 S /■ cr,'.=394. 
505—33=473—50=433—58 (80:1^=365--G/' col.= 
505—57 (80:1)=448— 3 // col.=445. 
505— 30=475— 58(80:1)=417. 
505-33=473—50=423. 533-433=110 + 1=111 + 

27 b col. =138. 
505-31=474—396 (80:1)=78. 533—78=445+ 1= 

446+4<^&// col. =450. 
505—146=359-3/. (146)=356- 

=335+1=336. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




Ill 


79:2 


would 


39 


80:3 


humble 


433 


79:3 


my 


160 


80:3 


father's 


443 


78:3 


proud 


358 


78:2 


and 


363 


80:3 


most 


468 


79:3 


honorable 


49 


80:3 


name 


431 


79:3 


in 


138 


79:3 


the 


435 


78:3 


dust 


383 


80:3 


and 


415 


77:3 


send 


60 


79:3 


his 


125 


79:3 


widow 


447 


79:3 


with 


129 


79:3 


a 


363 


77:3 


broken 


337 


78:3 


heart 


383 


80:3 


to 


465 


76:3 


the 


431 


78:3 


grave. 



499 


80:3 


to 


367 


80:3 


think 


417 


78:3 


that 


416 


80:3 


I 


310 


80:2 


should 


394 


81:1 


make 


339 


80:3 


a 


445 


81:1 


mock 


417 


79:2 


of 



-193=163. 498—163 



138 



450 



336 



r9:2 



the 



80:3 Christian 



76:1 religion. 



It was certainly enough to shock the pious Lady Ann to know that her son had 
written, in Measure for Measure, of the conception of the Christian religion as to 
the eternal condition of the wicked, in these startling words: 



BACON OVERWHELMED. 



853 



Or to be worse than worst 
Of those, that laiuless and incertain thoitghts 
Iinai^ine ho'ivling. 

And Bacon tells what he feared: — that he would be — 



505—31=474—5 b (31)=469. 577—469=108+1= 

109+23 /i col. =132. 
505-146=359—162=197. 462—197=265+1=266 

+ 5 b col. =271. 
505— 31=474— 50- =424. 457—424=33+1=34+17 

b & li col. ^51. 
505—30=475—49 (76:1)=426— 31=395— 6// col.= 
505—30=475—396 (80:1)=79. 
505—31=474-50=424. 462—424=38+1=39 + 

21/' col. =60. 
505—30=475—396 (80:1)=79— 17 b & h (396)=62. 

489—62=427 + 1=428. 
505—31=474—49=425—4 h col.=421. 
505—146=359—162=197—26 b^ h col. =171. 
505— 31=474— 49 ( 76:1 )=425— 30=395. 
505—146=359—162=197. 
505— 31=474— 58 (80:1 )=41 6— 4 h col. =412. 

Observe the symmetry of these words of King Richard the Second; see how 505 
— 31^474 — 49 alternates with 505 — 146='359 — 162, 

And here we have Richard the Second by another and a different root-number. 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




132 


77:1 


hanged 


271 


78:2 


like 


51 


76:2 


a 


(389) 


78:2 


dog- 


79 


80:2 


for 



60 






the 



428 


81:1 


play 


421 


80:2 


of 


171 


78:2 


King 


395 


78:2 


Richard 


197 


78:2 


the 


412 


80:2 


Second. 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE QUEEN'S ORDERS TO FIND SHAKSPERE. 

Wheresoe'er he is, 
Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living. 

As You Like It, zV/, /. 

ITURi. to another part of the Cipher story, or rather I recur to 
it, because I have already referred to it in a previous chapter. 
I can do no more now than give a few words, here and there, to 
show that the Cipher story runs through all these pages, and is 
called forth by the same root-numbers. 



505—448=57. 

505—193=312—30=282. 

505—448=57—50=7. 

505—1 93=3 1 2—50=262. 

505—193=312. 448—312=136+1=137. 

505—254=251—50=201. 508—201=307+1= 

505—193=312. 

505—1 93=312—50=262 . 448—262=1 86+1= 

505—193=312—31 (79 ;1)=28 1—50=231. 462—231 

=231 + 1=232. 
505—254=251—5 h col.=246. 
505—50=455. 

605—193=312=30 (79:1)=282— 27 b col.=255. 
505—248=257. 

505—248=257—50=207. 447—207=240+1= 
505—193=312—237 (73:2)=75. 169—75=94+1= 
505—254=251—30=221—193=28. 
505—197 (74 :2)=308— 248=60. 
505—254=251—15/; & // (254)=236— 49 (76:2)=187. 

508—187=321 + 1=322. 
505—248=257—50=207. 
505—254=251—30=221—31 (79:1)=190. 462-190 

=272+1=273. 
505—254=251—10/; col. =241. 
505—193=312—237=75+90=165. 
505—193=312—50=262. 
505—193=312-50=262. 498—262=236+1=237 + 

4 <^ col. =241. 
505—354=251—10/; col.=241. 

854 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




57 


76;2 


Her 


282 


75:2 


Grace 


7 


76:2 


is 


262 


75:2 


furious 


137 


76:1 


and 


308 


75:2 


hath 


312 


75:2 


sent 


187 


76:1 


out 


232 


78:2 


several 


246 


76:1 


vvell 


455 


76:2 


horsed, 


255 


78:2 


unarmed 


257 


74:1 


posts 


241 


75:1 


to 


95 


73:1 


find 


28 


75:2 


Shak'st 


60 


75:1 


spur, 


322 


75:2 


under 


207 


74:1 


the 


273 


78:2 


lead 


241 


76:1 


of 


165 


73:1 


my 


262 


76:1 


Lord 


241 


76:1 


of 


241 


76:1 S 


Shrewsbui 



THE QUEEN'S ORDEJiS TO EIND SHAKSPERE. 855 

This accords with the statement on page 686, ante, that the forces sent out to 
find Shakspere and the rest of the players were under the direction of the Earl 
■of Shrewsbury. And there was no necessity of sending armed troops to arrest a 
party of poor actors. The object was secrecy; hence, no tradition has come down 
to us of the attempt to arrest Shakspere. If armed soldiers had gone to Stratford 
looking for him, it would have made such an impression on the minds of the vil- 
lagers that, in all probability, it would have been remembered, and we should have 
heard something of it. And yet the matter was important enough to require 
prompt action under a prominent, reliable and discreet leader; for it was not 
merely the offense of playing seditious plays that was in question, but the fact that 
this had been done as an incentive to rebellion; and no one could tell in that 
troubled age how far the attempt had succeeded, or how soon civil war might 
break forth. The object was to quietly gain possession of the actors and probe 
the thing to the bottom. 

And the reader will observe how the beginning of scene i, act i, interlocks 
Avith the end of the same act, in the words several — well — horsed — unarmed — posts 
— under — lead, etc. With ampler leisure I could reduce this to a precise, mathe- 
matical, continuous system. 

And Cecil proposed — 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505—354=351. 498— 351=197+1=198+3// col. = 300 76:1 proposed — 

that the Earl should divide his forces into three divisions and send them in differ- 
ent directions wherever the actors were likely to be. 

,505— 193=31 3— 80=383. 448— 383=31 ( 
505—193=31 3—30=383. 
505—354=351—30=331—83=189. 463- 

+1=374. 
505—193=313—33 (79:1)=380— 5/^ (33)= 
505—198=313—83=380—5 h (33)=375. 

187 + 1=188+3 /.col.=191. 
505—193=313—31=381—5 /- (81)=376. 

lS6 + l=187+5(!' col. =193. 
505—354=35 1—30=33 1 —33 (79 : 1 )=189 . 

Here it will be observed that the same words, three — divisions, which came out 
at the summons of 523 — 21S (74:2)=305— 31 (79:i)=274 (see page 772, ante), and 
which were then used to describe the allotment of the money made by the Plays, 
between actors and author, are again employed at the call of 505—193=312-31 
and 505—254—32; that is to say, 505, less the upper section of 75:1, produces, car- 
ried to the end of act i, three; and 505 less the lower section of 75:1, carried to 
the beginning of act ii, gives us divisions. And 305 (523— 218=305)— 31=274, car- 
ried up 78:2, ////j- the hyphens, produces the same word three; and the same 305 
— 31=274, carried up the same 78:2, not counting in the hyphens, produces the 
same word divisions. Surely, no one will believe that all this delicate adjustment 
of the text and its brackets and hyphens, to two different numbers, could come 
about by accident. If it stood alone it would be enough to stagger incredulity; 
but, as it is, it is only one of thousands of other and similar instances. 

But the Queen, while taking these steps, does not fully believe that Francis 
Bacon could have written the treasonable play of Richard II. And she rebukes 
Cc^il for maki-.p; such a charge against him. And the Queen says to Cecil: 



5+1=317. 


317 


76:1 


Will 




383 


76:1 


divide 


-189=373 










374 


78:3 


his 


:375. 


375 


78:3 


forces 


463—375= 










191 


78:3 


in 


463—376= 










193 


78:3 


three 




189 


78:3 


divisions 



856 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



505—193=312—30=282—29 (78:2)=253. 384—253 

=81 + 1==32. 
505—198=312—30=282—29 (73:2)=258+193= 
505—198=812—29 (73 :2)=283— 193=90. 508—90 

=418+1=419. 
505—198=812—29 (73:2)=288. 284—288=1 + 1=2 

+ 7/^ col.==9. 
505-198=812-50=262-208 (78:2)=54. 284—54= 

230+1=281+5// col.=236. 
505—198=812—50=262—15/' & //=247— 287=10— 

8 b (237)=7. 
505— 198=312— 80=282— 29 (78:2)=258. 
505—198=812—29 (73:2)=283. 284—288=1 + 1= 
505— 198=812— 80=282— 28 (78:2)=254. 
505—198=812—80=282—248 (74:2)=84. 284—84= 

=250 + 1=251. 
505—198=812—80=282—28 (73:1)=254— 4/z col.= 
505— 193=312— 50=262— 208 (73 : 1 )=54. 
505— 193=312— 50=262— 90 (78:1)=172. 
505—198=312—50=262—15 h & ^=247-237=10- 

8 b (287)=7. 284— 7=277+1=278+8 // col.= 
505—198=312—50=262—15/; & //=247— 237=10— 

• 8^=7. 284—7=277+1=278. 
505— 198=312— 50=262— 50=212— 78 (73:1)=184. 

237— 134=103 + 1=104+3/' col.=107. 
505— 198=812— 50=262— 79 (73:1)=188. 



Word. 

82 

446 

419 



Page and 
Column. 



74:1 
75:1 

75:2 



This 

thing 

must 



9 


74:1 


stop. 


286 


74:1 


Between 


7 


74:1 


you 


258 


75:1 


and 


2 


74:1 


your 


254 


74:1 


crafty 


251 


74:1 


old 


250 


74:1 


father, 


54 


74:1 


with 


172 


78:2 


your 



281 



197 
188 



74:1 



smooth 



74 1 tongues. 



73.2 
78:2 



you 
are 



74:1 stuffing 



Here it will be observed that every word grows out of 505 minus 193, the upper 
section of 75:1; we will have directly a sentence that grows out of 505 minus 254, 
the lower section of the same column and page. The above sentence is produced 
by counting from the beginnings and ends of the subdivisions of the preceding col- 
umn, 73:2; the next sentence will be derived by counting from the beginnings and 
ends of 74:1 or 74:2. Thus the reader will perceive that there is not only regularity- 
in the results, but a method and system in the work. 

But the sentence goes on: 

505—254=251—15 b & h (254)=236. 284—236=48+1=49 
505—248=257—2 h (248)=255. 284—255=29 + 1= 

80+7// col. =87. 
505—254=251—248=3. 
505—248=257—51 (74:2)=206. 284—206=78+1= 

79+7// col. =86. 
505—254=251. 284—251=83+1=84+5 // col.= 
505—248=257—4 // col. =258. 
505— 254=251— 15 ^> & // (254)=286— 50=186. 284— 

186=98+1=99. 
505—248=257—22(^=235. 284—235=49+1=50+5 /= 
505—254=251—15 b & //=286. 284—236=48+1=49 

+ 7// col. =56. 56 



87 


74:1 


my 


3 


74:1 


ears 


86 


74:1 


with 


39 


74:1 


continual 


253 


74:1 


lies 


99 


74:1 


and 


=55 


74:1 


false 



74:1 



reports 



Observe the perfect symmetry of this: 505 — 254 (75:i)=25i is regularly alter- 
nated with 505 — 248 (74:2)=257. And all the words are in column i of page 74 t 



THE QUEEN'S OA'DE/^S TO FIND SHAKSFERE. 



857 



And what a concatenation of words; slitffiiv^ my ears -with coulinual lies mid false 
report!,! And we know that Cecil desired to keep Bacon out of office and power, 
and we can surmise that this would be the very means he would resort to. And 
the coarse-minded, crafty old Queen, even if she suspected Bacon, would be very 
apt to talk in this way to Cecil, for we have historical testimony that she would 
assault "this little man " (as she called him) with bitter vituperation. 



Page and 



50,-)— 193=312— 91 )=222. 
505— 248=-2rj7— 208(73:2;=49-h90=139. 
505— 193=3 12— 30=282- 
505—254=25 1—50=201. 



-15 (^& //=267— 4//col.= 
284—201=83+1=84. 



iVord. 


Column. 




222 


73:2 


this 


139 


7S:1 


many 


263 


74:1 


a 


84 


74:1 


year. 



And here I would ask the reader to turn to pages 719 and 720, ante, and note 
how the same words stuffing — ears — false — reports — lies — this — man 1 — a — rear, 
which here come out at the summons of 505 carried through 74:2 and the upper 
and lower subdivisions of 75:1, were also brought out, by an entirely different mode 
of counting, by the root-number 516 — 167^349 — 22 /' & /^ (i67)=327 ! For instance, 
327 — 30, carried through 74.2 and do7vn 74:1, yields stiiffiiii;, while 505 — 254=251 
— 15 /' & h (254)^236, carried up 74:1, yields the same word, stuffing; and the same 
number 236, plus the hyphens, /// the same column, yields reports; while the same 
number 327, again less 30, again carried through 74:2 and again carried do-wn 74:1, 
yields the same word, ^rports And so with the other words. The adjustments here 
are as delicate and as manifold as in the works of a watch; and the one is just as 
likely to have come together .jy chance as the other. 

And the Queen was in a — 



-15 b & //=267— 29 (73:2)= 
-50(74:2)=233— 12/^& // 



=23+ 



505—193=312—30=282 
505—193=3 1 2—30=282 

col. =220. 

and commenced to rebuke Cecil severely: 

505—193=312—50=262. 284—262=22 + 1 

7 // col. =30. 

505—193=312—284=28—10/^ col.=18. 
505—193=312—237 (73:2)=75. 169—75=94+1=95 

+1 h col.=96. 
505-193=312—209 (73:2)=103. 169—103=66 + 1= 
505—193=312—15/' & h (193)=297— 248=49— 5 / col. 
505— 193=312— i 5/. & h (193)=197— 30=267— 28 

(73:2)=239. 284—239=45+1=46. 
505—193=312—15 /' & /^=297— 30=267— 28 (73:2)= 

239. 284—239=45 + 1=46+50=96. 
50.5—254=251—208=43. 284—43=241 + 1 =242. 
505—193=312—15/; & 7^=297- 30=267— 28 (73:2)= 

239. 284— 239=45 + 1=46+ 30_76. 
505—193=312-50=2^2 -15 1> & //=247. 284—247= 

374-1=38 + 5/; col. =43. 
505—254=251—30=221. 284—221=63+1=64. 
505—193=312—30=282. 284— 282=2+1=3+7 /^ col. 
505—193=312—30=282. 284—282=2 + 1=3. 
505—254=251. 284—251=33+1=34. 



238 
220 



74:1 
74:1 



royal 
rage, 



30 


74:1 


Commenced 


18 


73:2 


to 


96 


73:1 


rebuke 


67 


73:1 


him 


=44 


74:1 


in 



46 

96 
242 



74:1 language 



74:1 
74:1 



stern 
and 



74:1 fearful, 



43 


74:1 


which 


64 


74:1 


wounds 


=10 


74:1 


the 


3 


74:1 


ears 


34 


74:1 


of 



SsS 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



Page and 
Column. 



74:1 



74:1 



Word. 

505— 193^312— 30=28-3— 50 (74:2)=332. 284—232 

=52+1=53. 5;} 

505—254=251—30=221. 284— 221=63h- 1=64+ 

7/, col. =71. <1 

505—193=312—15/' & //=297— 30=267-29 (7B:2)= 

238— 22/' & h col. =2 1 6. 
505— 193=312-50=262-50=212— 79 (73:1)=133. 
505—193=312—248=64—2 // (248)=62— 50. 
505—153=252—248=4. 
505—193=312—49=263. 
505— 1 93=3 1 2—30=282. 
505—193=312—50=262—15 b & //=247. 284—247= 

37+1=38. 38 

505— 193=312-50=262— 248=14— 2 /. (248)=12. 237 

—12=225+1=226. 226 

505—193=312—50=262. 262 

505—193=312—284=28. 28 

505—193=312—248 (74:2)=64— 22 b (248)=42. 42 

505—193=312—50=162. 284—162=22+1=23+ 

12^&//=35. 35 74:1 



them 



who 



216 


74:2 


listen 


183 


73:3 


to 


12 


73:2 


it; 


4 


74:1 


for 


263 


74:1 


a 


262 


74:1 


worse 



74:1 tongue 



73:3 


is 


74:1 


not 


73:2 


upon 


74:1 


the 



earth. 



231 


74:1 


stooped 


171. 284—171=113 + 1=114 


74:1 


so 


b col. =226. 226 


74:1 


low, 



Observe how regularly this sentence moves. It accords with historical truth, 
so far as it concerns Elizabeth's violent temper and abusive tongue; and it accords 
with the probabilities that the Queen would not, without conclusive proof, believe 
that Sir Nicholas Bacon's son could engage in treasonable practices. Nearly all 
the words grow out of 505 — 193=312; or, where they do not come from the 505 
minus the upper section of 75:1, they come from 505 minus the lower section of 
75:1, and they are nearly all found on 74:1, except where fragments left after deduct- 
ing 74:1 or 74:2 are carried backward to the last, page or forward to the next page. 

And the Queen tells Cecil that he has been unfair to Bacon; that he has — 

505—354=251—30=221. 
505—254=251—50=201—30. 
505—254=251—15 /'=236— 1' 

as to assail Bacon — 

505— 254=251— 50=301— 30=171— 10 /^ col. =161. 
505—193=312—248=64—2// (248)=62. 284—62 

=233+1=323+6// col.=229. 
505—193=312—248=64—2 // (348)=62. 
505—193=312—30=282—248=34. 
505—254=251—15/; & // (254)=236. 284-236=48 

+1=49+12 (^ & h col. =61. 
505—248=257—208 (73:2)=49— 3/; (308)=46. 169 

—46=133+1=124. 
505-193=312—30=282—337 (73:3)=45. 169—45 

=.124^.1=125. 
505—348- 257— 3 h (248)=255. 

And in her "royal rage" she tells Cecil that, if he does not find Shakspere, 
and prove his charge against Bacon to be true, he shall lose his office: 



161 



74:1 



in 



229 


74:1 


this 


63 


74:1 


covert 


34 


75:1 


way, 


61 


74:1 


while 


124 


73:1 


thy 


125 


73:1 


kinsman's 


255 


74:1 


sick. 



THE QUEEN'S ORDERS TO EIND SHAKSPERE. 



859 



Page and 



505—193=313—284 (74:1)=28. 337—28=209+1= 
505—248=257—50=207—10 h col =197. 

And the Queen tells the posts — 

505—248=257—50=207. 447—207=240+1=241 . 
505—254=251. 284— 251=33 + 1=34+7 /^ col.= 
505—193=312—248=64. 

505—248=257-22 b {248)=235. 284-235=49+1= 
■505—193=313—248=64. 237—64=173+1. 
•505—254=251. 284—251=33+1=34. 
505—248=257—22 (248)=235. 284—235=49+1= 
505—193=312—30=282—15/' & // (193)=267. 284- 

267=17 + l=18+10/'=(28). 
505—248=257—24^ & //=333. 
505—248=257—237 (73 :2)=20 + 90=1 1 0. 
505—193=312—30=282. 284—282=2+1=3+^// col 
505—248=257—33/' (248)=335. 

505—248=257—24 b^ h (248)=233. 384—233=5 1 + 1 =52 
505—193=312—50=262. 284—262=22+1=23. 
505—193=312—30=282—15/; & h (193)=367. 384 

267=17+1=18 + 7 h col. =25. 



Word. 


Column. 




210 


73:2 


lose 


197 


74:1 


office. 


241 


75:1 


To 


41 


74:1 


ride 


64 


73:2 


with 


50 


74:2 


the 


174 


73:2 


speed 


34 


74:1 


of 


50 


74:1 


the 


28 


74:1 


wind 


233 


74:1 


through 


110 


73:1 


all 


=10 


74:1 


the 


335 


74:1 peasant-towns 


=52 


74:1 


of 


23 


74:1 


the 



r4:l 



West. 



Observe here the recurrence of the same root-numbers: 505 carried through 
74:2, containing 248 words, leaves a remainder of 257; 257 taken down the pre- 
ceding column, 74:1, brings us to posts; but less the bracket words in 74:2 it produces 
peasant-toivns; and less both the oracketed and hyphenated words it gives us 
ihiviigk imposts i/iiviigh pcasa7it-lo-iv)is)\ and up the column it is stuffing, slanders, of, 
etc. And note how 505 — 193=312 produces spt'ed — wiiid — U'est, etc. 

And the Queen tells them tu give large rewards to the man who finds the 
actors. 

505—193=312—237 (73:2)=75. 
505—193=312—237 (73:2;=75— 3/ (237)=72 
501— 193=312— 284=28+90 (73:1)=118. 
505—193=312—28 (73:2;=284— 10/; col.=274. 
505-193=312-284=28. 90—28=62+ 1=63. 
505—193=312—50=262—237=25. 170 (72:2)— 25 

=145+1=146. 
505—1 93=312—50=262—237=25. 
505—193=312—50=262—237=25. 346+25=371. 
505—193=312—50—262—208 (73:1)=54— 3/ (208)= 
505—193=312—30=383—15/ & // col. =367. 
505-193=312—50=262—209 (73:2)=53. 
505—193=312—30=282—29 (73:2)=253. 284—253 

=31 + 1^=32 + 13 /; & // col. =44. 
505— 193=312— 50=262— 209(73:2)=53. 
505—193=312—50=262—237=25 + 170 (72:2)= 
505—193=312—50=262—237=25. 169—25=144+1= 



75 


74:1 


Make 


72 


73:1 


great 


118 


73:1 


offers 


274 


74:1 


of 


63 


73:1 


rewards 


146 


72:2 


to 


25 


72:2 


the 


371 


72:2 


man 


51 


73:1 


who 


267 


74:1 


brings 


53 


74:1 


them 


44 


74:1 


in, 


53 


73:1 


dead 


195 


72:2 


or 


=145 


73:2 


alive. 



Some of my readers may have thought that the marvelous revelations of the 
foregoing pages were merely coincidences. But here we are invading another 
play, the play of ist Henry IV., with cipher numbers derived from 2d Henry IV., 



86o THE CIPHER A'ARKATIVE. 

and we find the words of the story coming out in regular order as in the above sen- 
tence. And how completely does this fit into the story already told. We Lave 
had the narrative of the Queen's rage, the flight of the actors, the despair of Bacon, 
the order to send out posts to find Shakspere and his fellows, the separation of the 
soldiers into three divisions; and here we have the offer of great rewards to the iiiair 
who brings them in dead or alive. If this is accident, then the world is an acci- 
dent. 

And the Queen says she does not believe that this woe-begone, hateful, fat 
creature, Shakspere, had been a mask for her brilliant friend, whom she has known 
since a child: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505—19:3=812—30=282—29 (73:2)=253. 447—253= 

194+1=195. 195 75:1 This 

505— 193=312— 29(73 :2)=283. 283 75:1 woe-begone, 

505—193=312—50=262—28 (73:2)=234. 234 75:1 hateful, 

505— 193=312— 50=262— 29 (73:2)=233— 90 (r3.P-= 143 72:2 fat 
505— 193=312— 50=262— 208 (73:2)=54— 3 /' (208)= 

51 + 90=141. 141 73:1 creature 

505—193=312—50=262—209 (73:2)=53 + 90=143. 143 73:1 had 

505— 193=312— 50=262— 208 (73:2)=54+90=144. 144 73:1 been 
505—193=312—50=262—209 (73:2)=53— 3 b (209)= 

50+90=140. . ^ 140 73:1 a 

505-193=312—30=282—29 (73:2)=253— 13 /' col.= 240 75:1 mask 

for the son of her old friend; for she had — 

505—193=312—50=262—90=172—28=144. 144 74:1 known 

505—193=312—209 (73 :2)=103— 79=24. 588—24= 

564+1=565+1 /^ 565 (79)=566. ■ 566 72:2 him 

505—193=312—91 (73:1)=221. 221 73:2 since 

505—193=312—30=282—29 (73:2)=253. 447—253 

=194 + 1=195+11/' col. =206. 206 75:1 a 

505—193=312—91 (73:1)=221— 29 (73:2)=192. 284— 

192=92 + 1=93. 93 74:1 child. 

And the Queen had all the incredulity of the Shakspereolators of the nine- 
teenth century, and she says: I pronounce this story the strangest tale in the world, 
and not to be believed, and a lot of lies. 

505—193=312—209 (73:2)=103— 90=13. 588—13= 

.575 + 1=576. 576 72:2 Strangest 

505—193=312—209 (73:2)=103— 91=12. 588—12= 

576+1=577. 
505—193=312—50=262—28 (73:2)=234— 169 (73:1) 

=65. 170-65=105+1=106. 
505—193=312—28 (73:2)=284— 79=205. 588—205 

=383+4=384. 
505—193=312—50=262—15 b & //=247— 28 (73:2)= 

219. 284—219=65+1=66. 

505— 1 93=31 2— 29 (73 :2)=283— 90=1 93. 

505— 193=312— 28(73 :2)=284— 27 (73:1)=257+171= 428 

505—193=312-50=262—28 (73:2)_234— 169 (73:1)= 

65. 588—65=523+1=524. 524 72:2 believed. 



577 


72:2 


tale 


106 


72:2 


in 


384 


72-2 


the 


66 


74:1 


world; 
not 


193 


72:2 


to 


428 


72:2 


be 



Page and 
Column. 




72:2 


a 


72:2 


lot 


73:1 


of 


74:1 


lies. 



THE QUEEN'S ORDERS TO FIND SHAKSPERE. S6l 

And the Queen says Cecil has been telling her — 

Word. 
505—193=312—28 (73:2)=284— 79=205. 346—205 

^=141 + 1=142+2// col. =144. 144 

505—193=312—28 ( 73 :2)=284— 79=205. 205 

50.5—193=312—30=282—237 (73:2)=45— 3 b (237)= 42 
505—193=312—30=282—29=253. 253 

And here again we have the combination — it is found more than twenty times 
in these two plays — giving the name of Bacon's cousin: 

505—193=312—28 (73:2)=284— 27 (73:1)=257. 588— 

257=331 + 1=332. 332 72:2 Sees 

505—193=312—30=282—208 (73:2)=74. 169—74= 

95^-1=96+1 //=iJ7. 97 73:1 ill 

And here we have it again: 

505—19.3=312—30=282—28 (73:2)=254— 90=164+ 

170=334— 2// col.=332. 332 72:2 Sees) 

505— 193=312— 30=282— 209 (73:2)=73. 169-73= 

96+1=97. 97 73:1 ill ) 

In this last instance it will be observed that the two words move in paralle. 
lines: 505 — 193^=312 — 30^282; and the first word, sees, starts from the end of the 
first subdivision on 73:2, and goes upward and to the end of the scene on 73:1, and 
up again and backward and down from the end of the second section of 72:2. The 
other word, ill, starts from the same point of departure, the end of the first section, 
but moves downward through the column and backward and up the preceding 
column to the word ///. And in the first instance the count departs in the same 
way from the same starting-point and moves up through 28 and down through 20S 
in the same order. 

And right here, in connection with the elements of the name of Cecil, we have 
kinsman s 2ir\A yoitr cousin. We saw that 164(505 — 193 (75:l)=3i2 — 30 (74:2)=2S2 
— 28 (73:2)=254 — 90 (73:i)=i64) produced sees; but it also produces cousin: 

505—193=312—50=262—90=172. 172 73:2 your 

505—193=312—30=282—28=254—90=164. 164 73:2 cousin. 

And that same 2S2, which, modified by carrying it through the first section of 
73:2, produced sees and /// and cousin, also, carried through all of 73:2, produces 
Jiinsinan's: 

505— 193=312— 208 (73:2)=104— 27 (73:2)=77. 77 72:2 thy 

505—193=312—30=282—237=45. 169—45=124+1=125 72:2 kinsman's 

And the "old termagant" goes on to say that if Cecil can prove that Bacon 
wrote the Plays she will have him executed. I have not time to work this out in 
detail, but I call the attention of the critical to the way in which the same num- 
bers, which have already done such good service, respond again with most signifi- 
cant words. Here we have: 

505—1 93=3 1 2—50=262—208 (73 :2)=54— 3 b (208)=51 . 

90—51=39 + 1=40. 40 

505—193=312—209=103—3 1> (209)=100— 27=73. 

170—73=97+1=98. 98 

505— 193=312— 50=262— 20s (73:2)= ■)4— 27(73:1)= 

27+171=198. n" 



73:1 


the 


72:2 


old 


72:2 


termagant 



862 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

And let us pause and observe the manner in which this word tmiiagaut is so> 
placed that like Sfas-i/I, Sl/ak'st-spur, old jade, etc , it can be repeatedly used in 
referring to the Queen. It is accompanied by the word cA/ — " the old termagant." 

Let us take the combination with which we are already familiar, 505 — 167^ 
338 — 50=288. If we commence to count at the end of scene third (73:1), and 
count up that fragment of a column and down the preceding column, we have: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505— 167=338— 50=288— 90(73 :2)=198. 198 72:2 termagant 

Take 516-167=349 — 22 /' .t /;=327 — 50=277. If we commence to count at 
the same point of departure as in the last instance, but count downward through 
73:1, and then again down the next column as before, we again reach iennagant,. 
thus: 

516— 167=349— 22/; &//=327— 50=277— 79(73:2)= 198 72:2 termagant 

Or let us take still another root-number, to-wit: 513 — 29 (74:2), and we have, 
going through the same 90 used in the first instance: 

513—29 (74:2)=484— 90 (73:1)=394. 588—394=194 

+ 1=195+3// col. =198. 198 72:2 termagant 

Here we perceive that 484 — 90^394. Let the reader turn to the fac-simile and 
he will find that 394 in the same column with terniagaiit \^ plays ! 

513—29 (74:2)=484— 90=394. 394 72:2 plays 

Surely a very significant combination; for the old tcnnagaiit and the plays rep- 
resented very important subjects in Bacon's life and thoughts. We noted how 
plavs was brought in in 78:1: — " for one or t'other //rn-.v the rogue with my great 
toe;" and here we have: 

Art thtni alive, 
Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eye-sight? 

We can see the Cipher in the very process of construction. And if I had time 
and space I could show that nearly every word in that sentence, nay, in all these 
columns, is a Cipher word But to resume: 

We have seen that the text was so arranged as to bring out the word termagant 
in response to the summons of 505, 516 and 513: — here we have the fourth primal 
root-number, 523. We have just reached tcnnaganthy deducting 29, the lower sec- 
tion of 74:2, from 513; we now deduct the upper section of 74:2 from 523, and we have: 

528—50 (74:2)=473— 79 (73:1)=394. 588-394=194 

+ 1=195+3 // col. =198. • 198 72:2 termagant 

Here again we have the terminal number, 394; but how? We obtained it in the 
last instance by deducting from 513 (—29=484) the ////><';' section of 73:2, to-wit, 90; 
now we obtain it by deducting from 523 ( — 50^473; the hnver section of 73:2, to-wit, 
79. And again the 394 produces the word /Am/ But think of the exquisite ad- 
justments that were necessary to bring this about. The cryptologist could not use 
t'le word termagant (even though applied, as in the text, to a man !), or the word 
plays, very often, without exciting suspicion; and he tells us in the De Atigmentis that 
oneof the first requirements of a cipher is that it " be such as not to raise suspicion." ' 
Therefore he so adjusted the fragments of 73:1 that, counting up-ivard ixoxn the end 
of the scene, with the number 513 — 29, it would yield 394, which gives us both 

» Bacon's Works, vol. ix, p. 115. 



THE QUEEN'S OA'DEA'S TO FEYD SHAKSPERE. 863 

termagant and pl'ws; while counting dinvmvanl, from the same point, with 523 — 50, 
would again give us 394 and the same words, termagant and f/avs ! 

But this is not all. Turn back to the two immediately preceding instances, 
and we have the same process repeated, but with different elements. Thus: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505—167=338—50=288—90=198. 198 ri:z termagant 

516— 167=349— 22 /'& /^=827— 50=277— 79=198. 198 72:2 termagant 

Here we have the same process of cunning adjustment: — Again we count up 
from the end of the scene to produce 19S — /c^Wf?^^--,?;//,- and again we count r^rcw 
from the same point to produce iqS — termagant! And observe these numbers are 
not accidental: they are produced in the same way: 

505—167 (74:2)=338— 50=288. 

516=167 (74:2)=349— 50=299— 22 /p & //=277. 

And the difference between 288 and 277 is eleven; and the difference between 
79 and 90 is eleven ! 

But even this is not all. Let us take the fifth primal number, 506, and deduct 
50, and we have 456. Now we have seen that in the middle section of 73:1, be- 
tween 28 and 90, there are 62 words. Let us deduct this fragment, just as we 
deducted 79 and go before, and we have: 

506—50=456—62=394. 394 72:2 plays 

506—50=456-62=394. 588—394=194+1=195+ 

3 h col.=198. 198 72:2 termagant 

Or let us take the first primal number again, 505, and deduct the fragment at 
the top of 74:2, from 50 upwards, to-wit, 49, and we have the same result : 

505—49=456—62=394. 394 72:2 plays 

505—49=456—62=394. 588—394=194+ 1=195+ 

3// col. =198. 198 72:2 termagant 

But even this does not end the use of the word termagant. We have : 

50.5— 193 (75:1 )=31 2— 284 (74:1 )=28 + 170=1 98. 198 72:2 termagant 

But there is still more. When the brothers, Francis and Anthony Bacon, are 
discussing the bad news, the Cipher (with a root-number carried back from 74:2) 
refers again to the old termagant ; thus: 

523— 30(74:2=493— 254 (75:1)=239— 141 (73:1)= 98 72:2 old 

523—30=493—254=239—90=149. 346—149=197 

+ 1=198. 198 72:2 termagant 

Let the critical reader study this. Here we have the same formula, 523—30 
^493 — 254^239. But how do the terminals vary ? Old'xs obtained by counting 239 
words from the beginning of the second section of 73:1 to the end of the column; 
now, as between 28 and 169 there are 141 words, we deduct 141 from 239, and we 
have 98 left; and the 98th word on the next preceding column is old. But to find the 
word termagant we commence at the top of the yfrj-/ section 73:1, instead of the 
second, and instead of going to the end of the column we go to the end of the scene; 
this gives us 90 words; and go deducted from 239 leaves 149, and this, taken to the 



S64. 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



end of the second section of 72:2, and carried upward, yields /tvw;?^'-^;;/. Let me 
put this in the form of a diagram: 



Col. 2, p. 72./' ^\ 



Col. I, p. 73. 







I think it is probable that a full investigation of the Cipher will show that these 
words — old termagant — are used at least a score of times in the internal nar- 
rative. Here are some instances of the word old: 

If we commence with the root-number 505, to count from the end of 73:2 and 
count upward and forward, counting in the whole of page 73, containing 406 
words, and also the one hyphenated word, the 505th word is the gSth word, old; 
thus: 



505-407=98. 



Word. 

98 



Page and 
Column. 

72:2 



old 



We also have, matching the tcnnagant already cited, the following: 

98 73:2 



523-29 (74:2)=494) 588—494=94+1=95 + 3 // col. 
523—50 (74:2)=473— 79=394. 588—394=194+1= 
195+3// col.=198: 



198 



old 
termagant 



Observe the precision of this: the only difference is this, that the first word 
comes out of 523 less the /(?.r/ section of 74:2; the other, out of the first section of 
74:2; and that in the first case we commence to count, really, from the end of the 
third section of 73:1, and in the other case from the beginning of the same. 

And here we have another duplication: 



505-167=338—237 (73:2)=101— 3 l> (237)=98. 98 

505—167=338—50=288—90 (73:1)=19S. 198 



72:2 
70.0 



old 

termagant 



Here the count runs first from the end of scene 4, act v, ist Henry IV., then 
from the beginning of it. 

And here is still another: 



505—30 (74:2)=475— 50=425— 237 (73:2)=188 

—90 (73:1;= 98 
505—49 (74:2)=456— 63 (73:1)=394. 588—394= 

+ 1=195 + 3 //=198. 



=194 



98 



198 



72:3 old 

72:2 termagant 



But away and beyond all these adjustments the word termagant is used by the 
large root-numbers, which I have shown to lie at the very beginning of the Cipher 
narrative, and of which 505, 506, 513, 516 and 523 are but modifications. Thus, 



THE QUE EX'S ORO^kS TO FIND SHAKSPERE. 



865 



there are twelve italic words in column i of page 74; let us multiply 74, the num- 
ber of the page, by this number 12, and we have 888. Now commence to count 
at the top of 72:1 and count downward, and go forward to the next column and down- 
ward again, and we have plays, and counting downward and forward as before, 
but upward, counting in the hyphens on 73:2, we have termagant. Thus: 



74x12=888—494 (72:lj=394. 
74x12=888—494=394. 588—394=194+1=195+ 
3 h col.=198. 



Word. 

394 

198 



Paare and 

Column. 

72:2 



plays 
termagant 



Here, then, I have shown that not only does termagant come out at the call of 
every one of our Cipher numbers, 505, 506, 513, 516 and 523, but even at the sum- 
mons of one, at least, of the higher numbers which precede these in the order of 
the narrative. 

In short, every act, scene, fragment of scene, page, column, word, bracket 
and hyphen, in all the pages of these two plays, and, as I believe, of all the Plays, 
has been the subject of the most patient, painstaking prevision and arithmetical 
calculation and adjustment, to a degree that is almost inconceivable. These His- 
tories are, indeed, histories in a double sense; these Comedies may be the mask for 
inner tragedies; and, perhaps, — with a fine touch of humor, — the Tragedies them- 
selves may be but the cover for comedies of real life. '\ 

The man was sublime: — he played with words ; he made the grandest and pro- 
foundest thoughts of which the brain is capable the strings of his exquisite puz- 
zle; he made a jest of mankind, by setting up a stock and stone for their worship; ' 
and he dealt at once and forever a deadly blow to all absolute belief in the teachy 
ings of history. 

I should not dare to utter these opinions save in the presence of so many 
marvelous proofs. But there is no imagination in the multiplication table; no self- 
deception can invade the precincts of addition and subtraction; two and two are 
four, everywhere, to the end of the chapter. 

But to resume our narrative: 

And Cecil tells them when they find Shakspere and his men to ofi'er them 
immunity for their past misdeeds, if they will make a clean breast of it and tell 
who really prepared the dangerous play of Riehard II. Observe how remarkably 
the significant words come out from the terminal root-number, 312. 

505-193 (75:1)=312. 

312—237 (73:2)=75— 50 (73:2)=25. 

312—208 (73:2)=104— 90 (73:1)=14. 

312—209 (73:2)=103. 

312—208 (73:2)=104. 

312—90=222—30=192—3 b col. =189. 

312—208 (73:2)=104. 169—104=65+1=66. 

312—237=75—30 (74:2)=45. 

312—27 (73:1)=285— 237=48. 

312— 208(73:2)=104— 27(73:1)=77. 588—77=511+1=512 

312—79 (73:1)=233. 

312—237=75—30 (74:2)=45— 3 b (237)=42. 

312— 50=262— 79=183+346 (72:2)=529. 

312—142 (73:1)=170— 30 (74:2)=140. 588—140= 

448+1=449. 
312— 28(73:1)=284. 



25 


73:1 


Terms 


14 


72:2 


of 


103 


73:1 


grace, 


104 


73:1 


pardon 


189 


73:2 


and 


06 


73:1 


reward 


45 


73:1 


to 


48 


74:2 


himself 


=512 


72:2 


and 


233 


73:2 


all 


42 


73:2 


of 


529 


72:2 


them 


449 


72:2 


if 


284 


72-2 


he 



866 



THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 



312—79=233+170=403—1 h col —402. 

312—90=222. 588—222=366—1=367. 

312—208 (73:2)=104— 27 (73:1)=77. 

312—90=222—27 (73:1)=195. 

312—79=233. 

312— 90=222— 169 (73:l)=r)3+170=228. 

312—50=262—27 (73:1)=235. 

31 2— 50=262— 208=104— 90=1 4 + 346=360. 

312—27 (73:1)=285— 29 (74:2)=256— 237=19. 248- 

19=229+1=230. 
313—90=222—30 (74:2)=192. 237— 192=45 -f-l= 

46+3/^ col. =49. 
312—27 (73:1)=285— 29 (74:2)=256— 237=19. 248 

—19=229 + 1=230+1 h col. =231. 
312-90 (73:1)=222. 

312—90=222—50=172—28 (73:2)=144— 10 b col.= 
312—79=233—30=203—3/^ col. =200. 
312—237=75—27 (73:1)=48— 29 (73:'^)=19. 
312—90=222—50=172. 237—172=65+1=66. 
312—237=75—27 (73:1)=48. 
312-209=103. 171-103=68+1=69. 
312-90=222-27 (73:1)=195. 588—195=393+1= 
312—90= ; 22. 
312—90=222—50=172. 

312 -79=233— 27 (73:1)=206. 588—206=382+1= 
312— 284(74;1)=28. 
312—284=28+91=119. 

512—143 (73:1)=1G9. 237—169=68+1=69+3 h col. 
312—28 (73:1)=284— 171 ^72:2)=113. 
312—29 (73 :2)=283— 90=193. 
312—142 (73:1)=170. 
312—29 (73:2)=283— 90=193— 170. 
312—90=222 + 171 (72:2)=393— 2 // col. =391. 
312—29 (73 :2)=283— 79=204. 
312—28 (73:1 )=284— 171 (72:2)=113. 494—113= 

381 + 1=382. 
312—208=104—79=25. 
312—79 (73:1)=233— 170=63. 494—63=431 + 1= 

432+1 // col. =433. 
312—90 (73:l)=222-208 (73:2)=14. 284—14= 

270+1=271. 
312—29 (73:2)=283— 90=193. 346—193=153+1= 

154+2 /<col.=l 56. 
312— 209=103— 30 (74:2)=73+90=163. 
312—29 (73:2)=283— 90=193. 
312—90=222. 237—222=15+1=16. 
312—90=222. 237—222=15+1=16+28 (73:1)= 
312—90=222—169 (73:1)=53. 588—53=535+1= 
312—90=222—169=53—1 h (169)=52. 588—52= 

536+1=537 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




402 


72:2 


will 


367 


72:2 


tell 


77 


73:2 


the 


195 


74:2 


name 


233 


72:2 


of 


223 


72:2 


the 


235 


72:2 


man 


360 


72:2 


who 


230 


74:2 


furnished 


49 


73:2 


him 


231 


74:2 


w^ith 


222 


73:2 


this 


134 


74:1 


play 


200 


73:2 


and 


19 


74:2 


the 


66 


73:2 


rest 


48 


72:2 


of 


69 


72:2 


these 


394 


72:2 


Plays. 


222 


72:2 


But 


172 


72:2 


if. 


383 


72:2 


on 


28 


73:1 


the 


119 


73:1 


contrary, 


=72 


73:2 


he 


113 


72:2 


means 


193 


72:2 


to 


170 


72:2 


lie 


23 


72:1 


about 


391 


72:2 


it 


204 


72:2 


and 


382 


72:1 


play 


25 


72:2 


the 


433 


72:1 


fool, 


271 


74:1 


they 


156 


72:2 


will 


163 


73:1 


have 


193 


72:2 


to 


16 


73:2 


bear 


44 


73:2 


the 


536 


72:2 


sin 



537 



72: 



upon 



THE QUEEN'S ORDERS TO FEND SHAKSPERE. 



867 



Word. 
312—29 (73:2)=283— 90=193+346=539-1 h col.= 538 
312—29 (73:2)=283— 90=193+346=539. 539 

312—29 (73:2)=283— 90=198+347=540. 540 

And Cecil refers to Shakspere as " the fat fellow ": 

312—169 (73:1)=143. 143 

312—169 (73:1)=143— 50 (74:2)=93— 90 (73:1)=3. 

588—3=585 + 1=586. 586 



Page and 
Column. 



72:2 



r'> o 



their 

own 

heads. 



Fat 
fellow. 



Thus confirming the statements found on pages 78 and 79 of the Folio. 

And Cecil tells the Earl that the Queen is in a great rage. And here, again, it 
is not safe to say in the text Queen or her Majesty, or to have more than one ternia- 
o-a/tt in several pages, and so the Queen is alluded to as "the royal maiden." 

312—28 (73 :1)=284— 237=47. 284—47=237+1= 
312—79 (73:1)=233. 588—238=355+1=356. 
312—90=222 + 170=392—2 A col.=390. 
312—142=170+ 170=340. 
312—90=222. 346—222=124 + 1=125. 
312—208 (73:2)=104— 29 (74:2)=75— 8/^ (208)=72. 
312— 208(78:2)=104— 80 (74:2)=74— 8/; (208)=71. 

284— 71=213+1=214+6// col. =220. 220 74:1 



238 


74:1 


Royal 


856 


72:2 


maiden 


390 


72:2 


is 


340 


72:2 


in 


125 


72:2 


a 


72 


73:1 


great 



rage. 



312 72:2 


swear 


of Riehard II. 


on the stage, 


123 72:2 


should 


213 72:2 


die 


118 72:2 


a 


153 72:2 


bloody- 


19 73:2 


death. 



And the Queen doth swear: 

312. 

that every man engaged in the production of the play of Riehard II. 
unless they give up the real author, — 

312—237=75—27 (73:l)=-48. 170—48=122+1= 
812—237=75—80=45-3 /' (237)=42+ 171=213. 
812— 90=222— 169 (73: 1)=53. 170—53=117 + 1 = 
312—90=222—28 (73:1)=194. 346—194=152+1= 
312—90=222. 237—222=15 + 1=16+3 h col. =19. 

And Cecil says she told him to — 

312— 28(73 :1)=284+ 170=454—3// col.=451. 
312—27 (73:1)=285— 29 (74:2)=256— 237=19. 284— 

19=265 + 1=266. 
812-27 (73:1)=285. 
312— 90=222— 28 (73:1)=194. 346—194=152 + 1= 

153+2// col.=155. 

And as for Shakspere, if he does not confess the truth, she will — 

312— 29 (73:2)=288. 588—283=305+1=306. 80*5 

312—287=75—30=45+90=135. i35 

312—29(78:2)283—30=258. 433—253=180+1= 181 

312—79=233—30=203. 303 

312—209 (78:2)=108. 169—108=66+1=67. 67 



451 


72:2 


let 


266 


74:1 


them 


285 


72:2 


be 


155 


72:2 


imbowelled, 



72:2 


make 


73:1 


a 


71:2 


carbonado 


73:2 


of 


73:1 


him. 



But if he will reveal a'l he knows he will be spared: 



201 


71:2 


Save 


235 


73:2 


own 


23 


71:2 


life 


5 


73:2 


fortune 



868 THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

312—79 (73:1)=233. 346—233=113+1=114+ 

3 h col. =117. 117 72:2 spared; 

and not only spared, but favors shown him by the court: 

312— 90=222— 169 (73:1)=53. 53 72:2 favors. 

And the officers are directed to say nothing to any one about their mission, lest 
the actors fly the country. And when they arrest Shakspere they are at first to 
treat him kindly, and ask him why he should try to injure the Queen, who had 
never harmed him; and appeal to his better feelings; and urge him to confess, to 
save his own life and fortune. 

312—79 (73:1)=233. 433(71:2)— 233=200+1=201. 
312—27 (73 :1)=285— 50=235. 
312—90=222—30=192. 213 (71 :2)— 192=21 + 1=22 

+ 1=23. 
312—79=233. 237—233=4+1=5. 

And they are to say to him that he must not hold back the information he has 
as to the treasonable play; that there is — 

312— 27=285— 170(72:2)=115. 494—115=379 + 1= 380 72:1 No 

312—90=232—30=192. 192 72:2 time 

312— 169(73:1)=143. 346+143=489. 489 72:2 to 

312— 29 (73:2)=283. 433—283=150+1=151. 151 71:2 dally. 

In short, the crafty Cecil directed the officers that when they found Shakspere 
they were to work upon him in every way possible — by appeals to his cupidity, his 
ambition, and his terror of being burned alive — to tell the real author of the Plays, 
especially of that dangerous play which represented the deposition and murder of 
an unpopular King, and the execution of those councilors who stood to him in 
the same relation in which Cecil stood to the Queen. 

The reader will observe that every "wjrd of the story, for the last few pages, 
gro7vs out of the same terminal root-number, ji2, and nothing else. And that all the 
modifications of this number arise out of the fragments of the scenes in columns 
I and 2 of the same page, j^- A few words are carried backward to the begin- 
ning of the third scene, page 71, column 2; just as we saw the Cipher carried for- 
ward to the ends or the beginnings of acts and scenes in ^tf Henry IV. So 
that not only do we find the same capacity of the text to produce a coherent narra- 
tive in these pages of ist Henry IV., which we found to exist in 2d Henry IV., but 
the story coheres with the narrative produced by the same root-number, 312, 
in 2d Henry IV. For instance, we saw that 505, counting from the end of the first 
section of 75:1 forward and down the next column, produced sent out: 

505—193=312. 312 75:2 Sent 

505—193=312. 498—312=186+1=187. 187 76:1 out 

505— 248 (74:2)=257. 257 74:1 posts 

to 

505—193=312—237=75. 169— 75=194h 1=195. 195 73:1 find 

50.5—30 (74:2)=475— 447=28. 28 75:2 Shak'st ) 

505—197=308—248=60. 60 75:1 spur. \ 

But here the very 312 which produced sent out and find tells the story of 



THE QUEEN'S ORDERS TO FIND SHAKSPERE. 869 

what the posts were to do when they did find Shakspere; how they were to offer 
him pardon and grace if he would make a confession as to who was the real author 
of the Plays; and if he would not, that they were to threaten all the players who 
had taken part in the presentation of the deposition scene of Richard II. with a 
bloody death, that they should be inibo'wel/ed, etc.; and we have even the fierce threat 
of the savage old termagant, that of Shakspere himself she would make a (arbonado 
— a bon-fire — for the insults to the Christian religion contained m Measure for 
Measure, of which he was the alleged author. 

And observe how the fragments of 312 carried over from the first column of 
page 74 produce so many significant words: 312 — 284 (74:i)=23; and 28 up the 
the next column (73:2) is lose (lose his office), addressed by the Queen to Cecil, if 
he did not find Shakspere and prove his story against Bacon to be true. And 28 
up from the end of scene third (73:1) is reivards; and 28 down from the same point 
is offers ("offers of rewards ") : 



Word. 


Page and 

Column. 




63 


73:1 


rewards 


118 


73:1 


offers 



312— 384=2S. 90—38=62+1=63. 

313—284=28. 90+28=118. 

Or take 312 again less the second column of page 74 instead of the first; we have 
312 — 248=64; now 64 down 73:2 is with; and 64 tip ■jy.2 is speed; and 312 — 50 (74:2) 
=262, and this carried up 74:1 lands us in the midst of the first bracket sentence 
on the word zoind {nde -with the speed of the wind); and while 64 up 73:2 produces 
speed, the 174th word, if we add the modifier 30 it gives us march (174 + 30=204); 
thus: 

312— 248=64— 30 (74:2)=34. 237—34=203+1= 204 73:3 march; 

and march, applied to the movements of the " well-horsed posts," is cunningly 
disguised in the name of " the Earl of March." 

I repeat that we cannot penetrate the text of these two plays, at any point, 
without perceiving that, apart from any rule, the Cipher numbers call out words 
that cohere in meaning and purpose, in a way that no other text in the world is 
capable of. 



Page and 
Column. 




75 ;3 


Took 


76:2 


ratsbane. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

FRAGMENTS. 

And the hand of time 
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume. 

King John ^ ii^ I. 

I AM constrained by the great size of my book to leave out much 
that I had intended to insert. I have worked out the story of 
Bacon attempting suicide by taking ratsbane: 

Word. 

505—50 (74:2)==455— 50 (76:1)=405— 145 (76:2)=260 

— 50 (76:1)=210. 508—210=298 + 1=299. 299 

505—50 f74:2)=455— 50 (76:1)=405— 145 (76:2)=260. 

603—260=343+1=344+8/' col.=352. 352 

Preceding this we have, originating from pages 72 and 73 and their subdivi- 
sions, a full account of his griefs, his intense feelings, his desire to shield the mem- 
ory of his father, Sir Nicholas, from the ignominy which would fall upon it if it 
was known that his son had shared with such a low creature as Shakspere the 
profits of the Plays. Observe how the number 505 brings out ignominy: 

505. 588—505=83 + 1=84. 84 72:2 ignominy. 

And here we have his father's name: 

505—27 (73 : 1 )=478— 212 (71 :2)=266. 494—266= 

228+1=229. 229 72:1 Sir 

505— 169(73:1)=336— 212(71.2)=124. 124 72:1 Nicholas. 

Observe this: the Sir is 505 commencing at the end of the first section of 73:1, 
at the 27th word, and counting upward; the remainder is then taken to the end of 
the third scene (71:2), and carried up and brought back into the scene and down 
the column. The Nicholas is the same root-number, 505, carried through precisely 
the same process, save that we begin to count with 505 from the top of the same 
first section of 73:1, instead of the bottom, and we go do7vn 73:1, instead of up; 
and when we return from the beginning of scene 3 (71:2) we go up the column in- 
stead of do'vn. 

And here observe that the same number 478 (505 — 27 (73:i)=478), which car- 
ried to the end of the scene and brought back gave us Sir, if carried up 72:2 gives 
us ^ack; and this, with sphere, — 

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, — 

gives us another form of the word Shakspere. 

870 



FRAGMENTS. 871 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505—27=478. 588—478=110+1=111. Ill 72:2 Jack ^ 

505— 80=425— 221 (71 •.2)=204. 494—204=290+1= 291 72:1 sphere. \ 

Here again we see the systematic arrangement: 505 — 27 (the first section 73:1) 
is alternated with 80, the number of words from the end of the second section of 
73:1 to end of the column. But when the remainder is carried to the beginning 
of scene 3, 71:2, it is taken doivn the column through 221 words, instead of up the 
column through 212 words. 

And here we have Sir Nicholas again, — repeated in the progress of the inner 
story: 

505— 169 (73:l)=336—l/z (169)=335— 212(71:2)= 123 72:1 Sir | 

505— 63(73:1)=442— 212(71:2)=230. 230 72:1 Nicholas. )" 

Here, it will be observed, the words flow again from the same corner of 73:1: 
that is, for Sir we commence to count from the top of the first section of 73:1, 
and count down the column, as we did to obtain Nic holash&ioxn; but now we count 
in the one hyphenated word in the column, and we get Sir. And the next A^icholas 
is a different word from the one we used last : that was 124, 72:1 ; this is 230, 72:1. 
We obtained that word by beginning to count, with 505, from the beginnmg of the 
first section of 73:1 and going through the whole column; we procure this iVich- 
olas by starting with the same number, 505, but, instead of going through the whole 
column, we stop at the end of scene third; this gives us 63 words. (27 to 90^63.) 
And here again we note the beautiful adjustments of the text to the Cipher; for, start- 
ing from substantially the same place, with the same root-number, we produce Sir 
Nicholas twice and Shakspere once ! And the 442 (505 — 63=442) which gave us 
the last Nicholas, carried down 72:2 gives us, as the 442d word, father (iwy father, 
Sir Nicholas) ! 

And Bacon refers to the /^'7/('w/;/r his exposure would bring upon his ancestors, 
"those proud spirits," Sir Anthony Cooke, his grandfather; his father. Sir Nicholas, 
and others of whom we know little or nothing, who had "won great titles in the 
world." 

It is a pitiful and terrible story, told with great detail. Bacon sacrificed him- 
self, or intended to do so, to save his family and the good name of his ancestors 
from the ignominy of his trial and execution at Smithfield as a traitor and an 
infidel. 

And then we have the terrible story of his sufferings: He lost consciousness 
for a time and fell in the orchard and cut his head on the stones. He thought, in 
' is dreadful mental excitement and torture, — for he knew what it was 

Upon the tortures of the mind to lie 
In restless ecstacy, — 

that the spirits of his dead ancestors appeared and urged him to die ! Then came 
a young gentleman who was visiting at the house, St. Albans; he walked forth into 
the orchard; he stumbled over Bacon's body; he thought at first it was a dead 
deer: — 

523— 79 (73:1)=444. 588—444=144 + 1=145. 145 72:2 deer. 

When he found it was a man, he drew his sword, in great terror, and asked who it 
was, and what he was doing there, and finally ran to the house and returned, fol- 
lowed by Harry Percy and the whole household, who came running. Then we have 
Bacon resolving to keep quiet and counterfeit death, so as to allow the deadly drug. 



872 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

"which like a poisonous mineral doth gnaw the inwards," to do its complete work; 
rejoicing to think that in a little while he will be beyond the reach of Cecil's envy 
and the Queen's fury. Then we have the recognition, by Percy, that it is "our 
young master; " and the lifting up of the body, and the carrying of it to the house 
and to his room: 

Page and 

Word. Column. 

505—79=426—1 h (79)=425— 406=19. 19 73:2 room. 

Then follows the wiping the blood from his face; the undressing of him, — 
taking off " his satin cloak and silken slops; " the sending for the doctor, — 

505—50=455. 455 76:1 doctor,— 

who was the village apothecary, a Mr. Moore; then the discussion of the family 
as to what was the matter, some thinking he had fought a duel, others that he had 
been assailed by ruffians, for he was too gentle, it was said, to quarrel with any 
one. Then we have the refusal of the doctor to come, because the young man 
owed him a large bill for previous services, which had been standing for some time 
and not paid; and he demanded payment. 

And, strange to say, we find this very doctor's bill referred to in a letter of 
Lady Bacon to her son Anthony, given by Hepworth Dixon.' She says, under 
date of June 15, 1596: 

Paying Mr. Moore's bill for my physic, I asked him whether you did owe any- 
thing for physic ? He said he had not reckoned with you since Michaelmas last. 
Alas ! Why so long? say I. I think I said further it can be muted, for he hath 
his confections from strangers; and to tell you truly, I bade him secretly send his 
bill, which he seemed loth, but at my pressing, when I saw it came to above xv /. 
or xvj /. If it had been but vij or viij, I would have made some shift to pay. I 
told him I would say nothing to you because he was so unwilling. It may be he 
would take half willingly, because " ready money made always a cunning apothe- 
cary," said covetous Morgan, as his proverb. 

We can imagine that the apothecary was incensed, because after his bill had 
been presented, at the request of Lady Ann Bacon, it had not been paid; and 
that months had rolled by, from June, 1596, until the events occurred which are nar- 
rated in the Cipher — that is to say, until as I suppose, the spring of 1597; and 
hence the heat of the man of drugs and his refusal to attend. The apothecary was 
probably the only substitute for a doctor possessed by the village of St. Albans 
at that time. 

And here we have another little illustration of the cunning of the work. 
Where the doctor said that they " owed " him money, the text is twisted to get in 
the word thus : Falstaff says to the page: 

Sirra, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? 
Page. He said, sir. the water itself was a good healthy water; but for the 
party that oivned it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. 

This is the way it is found in the standard editions; but if the reader will turn 
to my facsimiles he will find the word cwz/tv/ printed pwd. In this way, Bacon 
got in the doctor's statement in the Cipher story, by misspelling a word in the 
text. 

But Bacon's aunt, Lady Burleigh, sister to his mother, and mother of his per- 
secutor, Cecil, overheard the servants report that the doctor would not come unless 

• Personal History 0/ Lord Bacon., page 391. 



FRAGMENTS. 873 

liis bill was paid, and she secretly gave the servant the money to pay it. And 
observe, again, how cunningly the word aunt is hidden in the text: 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

505-145 (76 :2)=360. 360 77:1 aunt 

But it is not spelled aunt, but ant, to-\vit, and it. 

Now, if the reader will examine the text of the play, he will find that and it is 
usually printed, where it is condensed into one word, asand't. See the 485th word, 
76:2. 

And Esse.x had arrived to warn Bacon of his danger, and he observed that the 
■doctor did not come when he was first sent for, and he rebuked him fiercely, and 
threatened to have his ears cut off; and the doctor answered with considerable spirit, 
under cover of the retorts of Falstaff to the Chief Justice's servants. See upper 
part of 77:1. 

Then we have the voluble doctor's declaration that Bacon's troubles were due 
to overstudy and perturbation of the brain, and were in the nature of an apoplectic 
fit; and he prescribed for him. In the meantime, Bacon suffered terribly from the 
effects of the poison, and, as he had taken a double dose, his stomach rejected it, 
^nd his life was thereby saved. 

Then we have the story of Harry Percy being sent in disguise to Stratford. I 
have worked out enough of it to make a story as long as all the Cipher narrative thus 
far given in these pages. 

Percy's rapid journey, his arrival, his dem.and to speak at once with Shakspere; 
the difficulties in the way. At last, he is shown up into the bed-room; the windows 
are all closed, according to the medical treatment of that age; and Shakspere is 
sweltering in a fur-trimmed cloak. Here we have a full and painful and precise 
•description of his appearance, very much emaciated from the terrible disorder 
which possessed him. Percy told him the news and urged him to fly. Shakspere 
refused. Percy saw that Shakspere intended to promptly confess and deliver up 
" Master Francis," and save himself. Percy was prepared for such a contingency, 
and told him that the man who was the ostensible author would suffer death with the 
real author; and he asks him: Did you not share in the profits; did you not strut about 
London and claim the Plays as yours, and did you not instruct the actor who played 
Richard J/, to imitate the peculiarities of gesture and speech of the Queen, so as to 
point the moral of the play: that she was as deserving of deposition as King Richard ? 
{" Know you not," said the Queen to Lambarde, "that I am Richard the Second ! ") 
And do you think, said Percy, that the man who did all this can escape punish- 
ment ? When Shakspere saw, as he thought, that he could not save himself by 
betraying Bacon, he at last consented to fly. Then followed a stormy scene. Mrs. 
Shakspere hung upon her husband's neck and wept; his sister, Mrs. Hart, bawled; 
her children howled, and the brother Gilbert, who was drunk, commenced an assault 
on Harry Percy, and drew a rusty old sword on him. Harry picked up a bung- 
mallet, and knocked him down, and threw him down stairs into the malt cellar. 
Then bedlam was let loose. In the midst of the uproar entered Susannah, who at 
once calmed the tempest. Harry was astonished at her beauty and good sense. 
He wonders how " so sweet a blossom could grow from so corrupt a root." We 
have a long description of her. She put the children to bed, and when she had 
heard Percy's story she advised her father to fly. He commenced to talk about 
his family, and how well he stood with his neighbors, for that question of gentility 
was his weak point. She replied, very sensibly, that they owed their neighbors 
no obligations, and need care nothing for what they said or thought. And 



874 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

Percy advised that they tell the neighbors that the Queen had sent for him 
to prepare a play for some approaching marriage at court. Mrs. Shakspere 
still wept and clung to him, and said she would " never see her dear hus- 
band again;" that he was too sick to travel, etc. To all this Percy replied that 
a sea-voyage and change of scene and air were the best remedies for his sickness; 
that they would go to Holland and from there to France, and that " Master Fran- 
cis" was acquainted with the family of De la Montaigne, and they could visit there; 
and in the meantime that Essex would, as soon as the Queen's rage had subsided, 
intercede for him, and he would thus be able to come back improved in health to 
the enjoyment of his wealth ; while if he stayed he would forfeit both life and fortune. 
And Percy said he had a friend, a Captain Grant, who was about to marry a rela- 
tive of his; his ship was then unloading at London, and they would have time to 
get to London before it was ready to sail. They would go twenty miles a day 
across the country, and hide in the vicinity of St. Albans, with some friends of 
Percy's, and thence work their way to London in the night; that when the posts 
found he had fled they would naturally think he had gone northward to Wales or 
Scotland; they would not look for him near St. Albans or London. And Percy 
suggested that Shakspere tell Captain Grant, to account for his secret flight, that 
he was an unmarried man, and that he had fallen into some trouble with a young 
woman; that a child was about to be born and that he was leaving the country on 
that account. The night was stormy and dark, and the roads muddy, and there 
would be none abroad to notice their flight. 

Convinced by all these arguments, Shakspere told his wife to get some supper 
ready and to bring him an old suit of leather jerkins, etc., which he had worn when 
a butcher's 'prentice, and he proceeded to array himself in these. 

Then follows, with great detail, a description of the supper, served by the 
handsome Susannah; and every article of food is given, much of it coarse and in 
poor condition; and Percy is vehement in his description and denunciation of the 
very poor quality of the wine, which was far inferior to the kind that was served 
at his spendthrift master's table. 

I only touch upon the salient points of the narrative. We have all the conver- 
sations given in detail, and with the graphic power that might be expected from 
such a writer. 

I have progressed far enough beyond this point to see that Shakspere went 
to sea. Turn to page 85 of the facsimiles, and in the first column we have tempest, 
commotion, vapor, captains, etc., while in the second column of the same page the 
reader will find high and giddy mast, ship, surge, -winds, monstrous billorvs, slippery, 
clouds, hurley, sea, sea, ocean, Neptune; while on page 82, column 2, we have vessel, 
vessel, 7'essel, marchanfs venture, Burdeaux-stuff, hold {oi a ship), hogs-head, etc.; 
in 83:2 we have Captain, several times repeated, and in 82:2 we have grant, 
two or three times. The story of the brawl is told on pages 83 and 84; in 
85:1 we have Percy's description of how he overtook and outrode the scouts,, 
concealed in the lines: 

I met and over-tooke a dozen captains. 
Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns 
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaffe. 

For the description of the supper, we have (82:1) disli, apple-Johns; (82:2) cana- 
ries — mine — pike — dry toasts; (83:1) ancient — mouldy — dried — cakes; stexved- 
prunes — bottle-ale — cup — sack; (84: i) bread — mustard; {84:2) bread — kitchen — roast 
— fat; (85:1) joint of mutton. Here are all the essentials of a supper, and yet 
there is no supper described in the text. And we have just seen that we have 



FRAGMENTS. 875 

(85:1, 85:2 and 82:2) all the words to describe a sea-voyage and a tempest on the 
ocean, and yet there is no sea-scene in the play. 

And here is another evidence of the Cipher, and of the microscopic character 
of the work. I showed some time since that on page 83 the 184th word was 
shake, and that it is forced into the text; because Dame Quickly, who had, in a pre- 
ceding scene in the same act, threatened to throw the corpulent Sir John Falstaff into 
the channel, and who did not fear his thrust, is now so terrified, by the mere 
approach of a swaggerer, that she says, " Feel, masters, how I shake." This is 
the first part of the name of Shakspere. Where is the rest of the name? It is on 
the same page, in the next column, and yet it will puzzle my readers to find it. 
Let them attempt it. And here I would observe that Bacon avoids putting Shake 
and spear nediX each other, lest it might create suspicion. Hence, where we have 
shak'st, we find near at hand spur; where we have sphere (pronounced then spere) 
we have close at hand not Shake hwX. Jack, pronounced shack. And so here, where 
we have shake, the last syllable is most cunningly concealed in the Italian quota- 
tion of Pistol: Si fortune me toriiieulc, sperato me coiiteiite. Now, in the Folio there 
is a hair space between sper and ato; and this gives us the necessary syllable to 
make the " Shake" Shake-sper. But the distinction is so minute that when Lionel 
Booth made his literal copy of the Folio of 1623, the printers, while they faithfully 
followed every detail of capitalization, spelling, pronunciation, etc., of the original 
Folio, missed this point and printed the word as sperato. And in the very last scene 
of the play, page 100, Pistol repeats his quotation, in a different form: Si fortuna 
me tormento sper a >7ie coutento. Here again we have sper separated from a. And 
note the different spelling: in the first instance /?r/«/«f serves in the Cipher story 
{ox fortune, the name of the Fortune theater; tonnente is used for iomient; and coii- 
tente iox conteHi; hul in the other instance, we have "fortune-," " tormentc," and 
"content£i," because the Cipher grew less intricate as the end of the play 
approached, and there was no necessity for the words to do double duty, as in the 
former instance. 

And here I would note another point. Falstaff says, "Throw the quean in the 
channel:" and some of the commentators have changed this word, because there was 
no channel at or near London, and the scene of Falstaff's arrest is clearly placed in 
London. What does it mean? The Cipher is telling something about the English 
Channel; and hence this violation of the geographical unities. In the same way it 
will be found that the sea-coast of Bohemia, Machiavel, in /st and j>(/ I/enry VI., 
and Aristotle, in Troilus and Cressida, are to be accounted for: they were necessi- 
ties of the Cipher narrative, and the congruitics of time and p^ace had to give way 
to its requirements. The correctness of the inside story was more important, in 
the mind of the author, than the proprieties of the external play. 

If the reader will turn to page 56 he will see how adroitly the name of the 
Spanish city of Cadiz, the scene of an English invasion, is worked into the text. 
The Prince is talking nonsense to the drawer, Francis, and he says: 

Wilt thou rob this Leatherne-jerkin, Christall button, Not-plated, Agat ring. 
Puke stocking, Caddice garter. Smooth tongue, Spanish pouch ? 

And the boy very naturally exclaims: '• O Lord, sir, who do you mean ?" 
Yet here, in this rambling nonsense, Caddice conceals Cadiz, and four words 
distant we have Spanish— 3.XiA Cadiz was a Spanish town. In that incoherent 
jumble of words were probably grouped together the tail-ends of half a dozen dif- 
ferent parts of the Cipher story. The wonder of the world will never cease when 
all this Cipher narrative is worked out; it will be indeed — 



S76 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

" The life-long wonder and astonishment " 

of mankind for thousands of years to come. 

It is not, of course, possible for me to prove the truth of my statements as to 
the foregoing Cipher narrative in this volume; but I hope to follow this work 
with another, in which I shall give the story in detail, and even follow the sick 
Shakspere across the sea. While Cecil could not prove his case against Bacon 
without the testimony of Shakspere, it must have been apparent to the Queen that 
the actor had received warning of his danger from some one about the court; and 
it might have been that facts enough came out to satisfy the Queen of Bacon's 
guilt; and hence his inability to rise to any office of great trust during Elizabeth's 
reign. 

But I will give one little specimen which is most significant, and may be clearer 
to the reader because of its simplicity. In most cases the scenes are divided up 
into fragments by the stage directions, and these fragments complicate the working 
of the Cipher; but here the entire scene is but a column in length, about one-half 
of it being in 81:2, and the remainder in the next column, 82:1. The sentence I 
give is: Harry at length persuaded him to fly. This significant collocation of words 
refers to Harry Percy, after a long discussion, persuading Shakspere to fly the 
country — the very flight referred to by Coke, in his allusion to clapping a capias 
titlagatunt on Bacon's back, some years afterward. 

The Cipher number is 505. It commences to count from the upper section of 
73:2, containing 29 words; therefore, 505 — 29=476; and the number here used is 
476. And here we perceive the subtlety of the Cipher: If any one thought he 
saw on pages 81 and 82 traces of a Cipher, he would naturally look for the key- 
number on or near those pages; he would not think of going back to the end of a 
preceding play, ist Henry IV., to find the first modifier of a number obtained from 
the first page of 2d Henry IV. But here we have the Cipher contained on pages 
81 and 82 revealed by a number growing out of pages 73 and 74, eight or nine 
pages distant. 

Now this little scene of one column (scene 3, act ii, 2d Heniy IV.) is literally 
packed with Cipher words. I give only a fragment. 

First we have : 

505—29=476. 

But I stated in the chapters in which I explained the Cipher rule that the 
second group of modifiers was found in 73:1, and that they consisted of 27 or 28, 
62 or 63, 90 and 79, and 141 or 142. Here we have in this brief sentence of seven 
words these modifiers: 28 — 62 — 90. 

If we deduct 28 from 476 we have 448; if we deduct from it 62 we have 414; 
if we deduct from it 90, we have 386. Now, if these numbers, carried to a part of 
the play eight pages distant from where they are obtained, produce a perfectly 
coherent sentence, no one but an individual lacking in the ordinary faculties of the 
human mind can believe that it is accidental. 

Here, then, we have the sentence: 

476—28=448—334 (81:2)=214. 

83+9 /' & //=93. 
476—62=414—134 (83:1)=380. 
476—38=448—234 (81:3)=314. 
476—63=414—296 (82:1)=118. 
476—90=386—296 (83:1)=90. 



296 214=83-1-1 


Word. 


Pag:e and 
Column. 




420—280=140+1= 


93 
141 


82:1 
81:2 


Harry 
at 


186+118=304. 
420—90=330+1= 


214 
304 
331 


82:1 
81:2 
81:2 


length 

persuaded 

him 



FRAGMENTS. 



877 



Page and 

Word. Column. 

476— 62=414— 296 (83:1)=118. 118 81:2 to 

476— 90=386— 234 (81 ■.2)=152. 296—152=144+1= 145 82:1 fly. 

And note that the first formula above, 476 — 28=448 — 234, carried up from the 
end of the scene, gives us the S3d word (82:1), which is Marshal, and here is its 
associate, Knight — the " Knight Marshal " was one of the officers of the court: 

476— 28=448— 186 (81 :2)=262. 262 81:2 Knight 

476— 28=448— 234 (81 :2)=214. 296—214=82+1= 83 82:1 Marshal. 

But to make the first sentence plainer I give the following diagram, showing 
the precise and regular movement of the four words — Harry at length persuaded: 



f Col. 2. p. Si. 



—IT- 


at 


•0 


4^ 











^ 


1 


\o 


1 


00 




t7 


1 


-l^Scene^ 


J.\ 


1 1 




\ \ 


;t_Persfiadefl | 




^ \ 


1 


\ \ \ 


^1/ 


\ \ \ 




Or take the words Knight Marshal: 



Col. I, p. 81 . ^ ^, 




Col. 2, p 


Si. 


\ 




\ 




\ 




\ 
1 

1 

I 




1 

XScene 


3* 




1 

1 




\ 




\ 



Col. I, p. 82. 




Those words — Harry at length persuaded— ought alone to settle the question 
of a Cipher in the Plays. 
They stand thus: 

476—28= Harry 

476—62= at 

476—28= length 

476 62= persuaded. 



But observe the movement of them: 



878 THE CIPHER NA RRA TIVE. 

476 — 28. Commence beginning scene 3, do-wn, Harry 

476— G2 " end scene 3, ?//, at 

476 — 28 " beginning scene 3, down, length 

476 — 62 " end scene 3, up. persuaded. 

But everywhere you touch with these numbers in this vicinity you bring out 
significant words. For instance, .J76 — go gave us 386 (which yielded him and fly). 
But the same go (386 — 2g6=go), which, carried up 81:2, gave us him. carried down 
the same column gives us go (go, 81:2), a word naturally connected with "per- 
suaded him to fly;" and carried up from the end of the break in the same column 
the same go gives us rode; and the same 476 — 28=448, carried through that same 
first section of 81:2, leaves 262, and this, carried through the second section of 82:1 
and down 82:2, plus the brackets, gives us muddy (" muddy roads "); and the same 
go taken downward from the end of first section of 81:2 yields ;/('7i'(the road is now 
muddy); and if we deduct from 476, instead of go, its co-modifier, 79, we have left 
397; and if we commence at the beginning of scene third, as before, and count 
down and then up from the end of the scene, as in the other instances, we get the 
word seek (the Knight Marshal comes to seek you): 

Page and 
Word. Column. 

476—79=397—234=163. 296—163=133+1=134 134. 82:1 seek. 

And this same 163, down 82:1, ////j the brackets, is armed (the armed soldiers 
with the Knight Marshal). 

And here we have the drunken brother alluded to. We saw that 505 — 29=476 
— 28=448 produced, less the fragments in 81:2, Harry, length, muddy, etc. Now, 
if, instead of counting from the beginning of scene third doivnward, through 234 
words, we count upward, through 186 words, counting in that first word (for this 
part of the narrative belongs to the third scene), we have the following: 

476—28=448—186=262. 262 82:1 A 
476—28=448—234=214—133 (82:1)=81. 425—81= 

344+1=345. 345 82:2 swaggering 

476—28=448—186=262—134 (82:1)=128— 5 h (134)= 123 82:2 rascal. 

Here the 214 which produces sivaggering is the same root-number that produced 
length — " Harry at length persuaded," etc. And here we have the statement that 
he was drunk, growing out of the same 414 which gave us /^r.; w^^/t'f/.- 

476—62=414—234=180—134 (82:l)=46-5 h (134)= 41 82:2 drunk. 

And so I might go on for another volume. 

Here we have Shakspere's sister alluded to: Afisti-ess Hart — see word 136, 82:2, 
and word 78, 82:2; and again in Hart-deere-Harry, 282, 81.2; and just as we 
found the dear in this triple hyphenation spelled deere, because in the Cipher story 
it referred to a deer, so we even have hea)-t misspelled, to give us the correct spell- 
ing of Shakspere's sister's name. Here we have it : 273, 80:2, hart I 

And here, growing out of the same root-number, 448, we have St. Albans: 

476— 28=448— 134 (82:1)=314. 420—314=106+1= 107 81:2 St. Albans. 

And if we count in the nine brackets in the column below St. Albans, we have 
the word bestow; and if we count in both brackets and hyphens we have night; 
and if we take 414 (476 — 62=414), which we have seen to alternate with 448, up 
%i:\, plus the brackets, it brings us to second; thus: 

476-28=448— 297 (82:1)=151. 151 82:2 The 



FRAGMENTS. 



879 



Word. 
476—62=414. 430 (82:1)— 414=16+1=17+9/' col.= 26 
476—28=448—134=314. 420 (81:2)— 314=106 + 1= 

107 + 12 /'& //=1 19. 119 



And here we have: 



169 



476—28=448—430 (82:1)=18. 186—18=168 + 1= 
476—28=448—134 (82:1)=314. 420-314=106+1-- 

107+9 /;col.=116. 116 

The second night we shall bc$to7v ourseh'es at St. Albans. 

476—28=448—297 (82:1)=151— 9/^ (297)=142— 

1/, col. =141. 141 

476— 28=448— 134 (.82: 1)=314. 420—314=106 + 1= 107 



Page and 




Column. 




82:1 


second 


81:2 


night 


81:2 


shall 


8'':1 


bestow 



81:2 
82:1 



at 
St. Albans. 



488 


84:1 


Merry 


18 


81:1 


Wives 


193 


79:2 


Windsor. 



Here the number 44S parts at the .stage direction in S2:i, and carried up, back- 
ward and down, it produces at, while carried down, backward and up, it produces 
St. Albans ! 

And observe how cunningly that at is made to do double duty, first in the sen- 
tence, Harry at length persuaded, etc., and then in the above: 

476— 62=414— 134 (82:1)=280. 420—280=140+1= 141 81:2 at 

476—28=448—297 (82:1)=151— 9 b (297)=142— 

l^col.=141. 141 81:2 at 

Think of the infinite adjustments in every part of this text, any one of which 
failing would destroy much of the Cipher narrative ! 

And here, again, we have, out of the same root-numbers. The Merry Wives of 
Windsor: 

476—62=414—26 (85:l)=388+50 (84:1)=438. 
476—28=448—186 (81:2)=262— o7=20r)— 186 (81:2) 

=19— 1/^ col. =18. 
476—62=414—186 (81:2)=228— 31 (79:1)=197— 

4/;& h col. =193. 

And here we have: 

476—62=414—234 (81:2)=180— 57 (80:1)=123. 185 

—123=62+1=63. 63 81:2 Master 

476— 28=448— 186'(81:2)=262. 333 (85:1)— 262=71 

+1=72+12 /;& /^ col. =84. 84 85:1 Francis. 

The word Francis occurs in the Folio fifteen times; Francisco twice; Francois 
once; and Frank ten times; or twenty-eight in all. It is probable that Bacon often 
refers to himself under the disguise of France-is. France fills up nearly three col- 
umns of Mrs. Clarke's Concordance, and is found in twenty of the Plays; even in 
plays like The Merry Wives, the Merchant of Venice, the Comedy of Errors, and 
Hamlet, where we would not naturally expect to m-eet it. In Lo7'e's Labor Lost, act 
iii, scene i, the word Francis is dragged in very oddly: 

Armada. Sirra Costard, I will infranchise thee. 

Clown. O marry me to one Francis. I smell some Lenvoy, some goose in this. 

Here infranchise is introduced to make a foundation for a pun on Francis. 
But, as Costard is a man, he could not marry a man, and the word should be 



88o THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

Frances, and so it is printed in the ordinary editions of to-day; but in the Folio of 
1623 it is Francis ! And in the same play we have, act v, scene i: 

Pedant. £a, pueritia, with a horn added. 
Page. Ba, most seely sheepe, with a horn. 

There is little meaning and no wit in this; but the word can added to Ba, with 
the broad pronunciation of that age, would give us, with the misspelled Frances, 
the whole name: Francis Ba-con. 

But let us pass away from these examples and this part of 2d Henry IV., and 
go backward, twenty-six columns, to act v, scene i, of ist Henry IV., and see if 
the text there also responds to the magical influence of these same Cipher num- 
bers. Some may say that I have shown nothing in the Cipher narrative that asserts 
that Francis Bacon wrote the Plays. True; and that is one of the proofs of the 
reality of the work I have performed. If I had wrought out only such sentences, 
as I desired, I would probably in the beginning have constructed a sentence directly 
making the claim that " /, Francis Bacon, of St. Albans, son of the late Lord Chan- 
cellor Nicholas Bacon, 'turote the so-called Shakespeare Plays." But I could not find 
what is not in the text; and I doubt if any such direct and distinct assertion of 
authorship is made; nor would it be natural, when one thinks it over, that it should 
be made; for if Bacon proceeds to give, in a long narrative, the history of his life, 
he would advance, step by step, from his youth upward; we should hear of his 
first essays in poetry; then of his first attempts at dramatic writing; then of his- 
acquaintance with Shakspere; then the history of a particular play; and so the 
narrative would advance without any sign-board declaration of the kind supposed 
above. But I have shown enough to satisfy any one that Shakspere did not write 
the Plays; and I have also shown that the man who did write them was a certain 
Master Francis, a cousin of Cecil, and that his father's name was Sir Nicholas; that 
he resided at St. Albans. But here we have a reference to my uncle Burly, which 
still further serves to identify the mysterious voice which is talking to us out of 
these arithmetical adjustments, as the voice of the great Francis Bacon. And it 
comes from another part of the text, showing that the Cipher is everywhere; and 
it responds, not to 505, like the sentences I have just been giving, but to another 
Cipher number, 523. 

Let us commence with 523 at the beginning of scene 2, act i, ist Henry IV., 
page 70, column i. From the first word, inclusive, of the scene, upward, we have 
in the column 341 words: deduct 341 from 523, and we have 182 left; carry this up. 
the preceding column, and it brings us to the word burly: 

Which gape and rub the elbow at the news 
Of hurly burly innovation. 

Why are these words not united by a hyphen, as are 7vater-colours, two lines, 
below them ? 

Now, if we take that root-number 523 again, and commence at the same point, 
but count do'ion the column, instead of up, as in the last sentence, we pass through 
138 words; and these deducted from 523 leave 385; now deduct the common modi- 
ifier, 30(74:2), and we have 355. Now, instead of going up 69:2, let us carry this 
355 to the end of the first section of scene i, act i, 6g:i, and go upward; there are 
179 words from the end of that section to the top of the column; 179 deducted 
from 355 leaves 176, and 176 carried down the preceding column (68:2) is uncle. 
But if we count from the top of the second section of act i, scene i, we have i8o- 
words, and this deducted from 355 leaves 175, which gives us the word my. Here 
we have the words my uncle; and, growing out of precisely the same root-number^ 
we have the word Burly, by a different count from that just given: 



Page and 
Column. 




68:2 


My 


68:2 


uncle 


69:2 


Burly, 



FRAGMENTS. 88 1 



Word. 
523—138 (70:l)=3S5-30 (74:2)=355-.180 (69:1)= 175 
523—138=385—30=355—179 (69:1)=176. 176 

523—138=385—60 (2d § 79:1)=325— 2 // col.= 323 

Or, to give the word Burly, as at first stated, we have: 

23-341=182. 504—182=322+1=323. 323 69:2 Burly. 

Here the length of column 2 of page 69 was adjusted to the fragments of 70:1, 
so that ^2 J zvould produce the word Burly both tip and do7on the cohivin I 

And observe how singularly this word uncle appears in the Plays. It is found but 
once in each of the following plays: Merchant of Venice, All's Well, Comedy of 
Errors and Cymbeline j but twice in each of the following plays: Tempest, Merry 
IVives, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Othello; while it is altogether absent 
from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, Love's Labor Lost, Mid- 
summer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, The Winters 
Tale, Henry VIIL, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius dvsar, Lear and Anthony 
and Cleopatra. On the other hand, it is found eight times \n King John, fiventy 
times in Richard I/., ten times in ist Henry IV., seventeen times in Richard I//., and 
eleven times in Troiliis and Cressida. But while found ten times in ist Henry I V. and 
eight times in Henry V., it does not occur at all in the play between these, — 2d Henry 
I]'.! There is no reason why tmcle should appear eleven times in the Greek play 
of Troilus and Cressida, and not at all in that other Greek play of Timon of Athens, 
or in the Roman plays of Coriolanus and Julius Cesar, or why it should be found 
twenty times in Richard II. and not at all in Henry J'lII..' The explanation will 
be found to be, that in some plays Bacon is telling the history of his youth, with 
which his uncle Burleigh had a great deal to do, while Lear, Timon of Athens, the 
Roman plays, Henry J'lll., etc., were written after his uncle's death, and the inter- 
nal story does not relate to him, while the more youthful and joyous plays, like The 
T7V0 Gentlemen, of Verona and Love's Lnbor Lost, were composed before the dark 
shadow of his kinsman's hostility fell upon his life. 

And here is another significant fact. The difference between the first Burly 
and the last is the difTerence of deducting the modifier 30. Now let us take the 
last Burly and deduct the other modifier 50, that is, go down the column 50 words, 
a-d what do we find ? Burly is the 323d word, 69:2, counting up the column; add 
50 to 323 and we have 373, 69:2, and the 373d word is nepheiv : and Bacon was 
Burleigh's «^'/'/^<'7l' .' Now take that same 186 and carry it through the first section of 
scene i, act i, 6g:i ; we have 122 or 123 left, accordingly as we count from the 179th 
or 180th word; and we get the following words: 

523—341=1 82—59=1 23. 

523_841=182— 60=122. 202 (68:2)— 122=80 + 1= 

523—341=182—59=123. 202 (68:2)-123=79 +1 

=80+2 //=82. 
523—431=182—60=122. 202 (68:2)— 122=80+1 

=81+2 //=83. 
523—341=182—60=122. 203 (68:2)— 122=81 + 1 

=82+2/^=84. 

How? By excessive and extravagant praises of the Plays, hoping that in his 
pride Bacon would admit the authorship. The accomplice of Burleigh and Cecil 
in this work was Sir IValter (Raleigh), and Sir Walter is often referred to in the 
text. Here we have him: 



123 


69:2 


Had 


81 


68:2 


sought 


82 


68:2 


to 


83 


68:2 


intrap 


84 


68:2 


me. 



882 THE CIPHER .VARRATIVK. 

Pajjc and 
WorJ. Column. 

523— 138 (70:1)=3;>J-180 (69:1)— L'05. 205 68:2 Sir 

523—138 (70:1)=385— 30=355— 120 (69:1)=235— 201 

(68:2)=34. 34 68:1 Walter. 

And here is the word praise: 

523—138=385. 385 69:2 praise. 

And the play they especially praised was The Eamons Victories, one of tlie 
early plays, here alluded to simply as the Victories. And the same root-num- 
ber, 123, that produced sought to iiitrap vie, produces also l^ictories, thus : 

523—341 (70:1)=182— 5f. (69:1)=123. 202—123=79+1=80. 68:2 Victories. 

And note again, that while 523 — 138 (70:i)=385, and this, counting from the 
beginning of the second section of 6g:i, produced sir, and from the top of the first 
section of 69:1 produced IValter, that from the end of the first section of 6g:i it 
leaves 206, and this less the modifier 30 is 176, and 176 is again uncle. 

523—138=385—179=206—30=176. 176 68:2 uncle. 

And I could go on and on adinfinifiiin, and show how 176 up from the end of scene 
third (68:2) produces A7//^'v and I might then point to the word Richanfs, 387, 69:1; 
deposed, 25, 68:2; depri^'cd, 31, 68:2; life, 35, 68:2; purpose, 180, 68:2; council-board, 
92, 68:2; insurrection, 329, 69:2; rebellion, 296, 69:2; Sir W^alter, 147-8, 68:2, and a 
whole host of most significant words, every one of which has its Cipher arithmet- 
ical arrangements. And here, too, is told the story of the sending of Percy to 
Shakspere's home. There are 283 words in scene i, act i, in column i, page 6g: 

505— 193 (75:1)=312— 283=29. 29 69:2 home. 

And here we have the word strait growing out of precisely the same root as 
home: 
505— 193(75:11=312 — 59 (first section, act v, scene i) 

=253—191 (68:2)=62. 458—62=396 + 1—397. 397 68:1 strait. 

And we saw that 29, carried forward to 69:2, made the word home, but carried 
backward to 68:2 and down from the end of scene third, it gives us directed, thus: 

505—193=312—283=29+202=231. 231 68:2 directed. 

While counting in the four hyphens in 283 and in the column gives us 227, to; 
and 312 — 120 (from top of act v to top of column)=ig2, and the I92d word, 69:2, is 
bird, a rare word; the sentence is: directed him to go as straight as a bird flies to his 
home; and 312 — 5g again =253, less the two hyphens in the column, gives us 251 
(6g:2), as: and 312 — 179 (from end section i, scene i, act v, up to top of column) 
gives us 133; and 133 up the next preceding column (68:2) gives the 26rst word, 
a {straight as a bird); and then we have the word indirect: Percy is to go not by the 
indirect ways, but straight as a bird flies, etc. 

312—179=133. 133 68:2 indirect. 

And 312 — 180 (from the top of second section, act v, scene i, upward) = 132, 
and xhis, minus 50(74:2) leaves 82, and this carried to the beginning of scene 4(68:2) 
and downward gives us iindeistattd (82 + 202^284, ^'8:2), while 83 (312 — 179= 
133 — 50^83) carried up from the same point yields the 120th word, safety: to let 
Shakspere understand ihat his own safety requires him to fly. And so I might go 
on and work out another volume of the story right here. 





Page and 




Vord. 


Column. 




m 


73:2 


The 


419 


75:1 


Earl 


43 


78:2 


of 


179 


74:2 


Shrewsbury- 


376 


76:1 


tells 


1 


75:1 


me 


478 


76:1 


he 


130 


75:2 


saw 



FRAGMENTS. 883 

And now let us turn to some other fragments, for 1 desire to show that all the 
Cipher numbers, 505, 506, 513, 516 and 523, applied in all parts of the text, pro- 
duce coherent narratives, which I have now neither the space nor time to work out 
in full. 

Take the root-number 516 and deduct the 167 words in the second section of 
74:2. and we have 349; now deduct the 22 /' & // in 167, and we have 327. 

And here we have a fragment of the statement of Cecil to the Queen, to-wit, 
that, suspecting the real authorship of the Plays, the Earl of Shrewsbury went to the 
Curtain (286, 75:1) Play-house to see Shakspere act: 

516—107=349—22 h & h (16r)=;32r. 



349—22/^ & //=327— 284 (74:1)— 43— 10 /> (284)=33. 
349—22 i & 7^=327— 50=277— 248=29. 447—29= 

418+1=419. 
349—22 /; & 7^=327-284 (74:1)=43. 
349—22 /> & 7^=327— 254=73. 248—73=175 + 1= 

176+3=179. 
349—33 /; & /•=327— 254 (75:1)=73. 448—73=375 

+ 1=376. 
349—22 /' & 7/=327— 50=277— 248=29— 22 /- (248)= 
349— 22 ^& 7/=327— 50=277— 248=29+449=478. 
349— 22/; & 7/=327-50=277— 145=132— 2 7;=180. 
349—22 /;& 7/=327— 30=297— 50 (76:1 )=247— 146 

(76:2) =101. 498—101=397+1=398. 398 76:1 him 

349—22 d & 7/=327— 49 (76:1)=278— 254 24— 

15^&/,=9. 508—9=499 + 1=500. 500 75:2 act. 

349_33/,& 7^=327—49=278. 278 76:2 He 

349—22 /> & 7/=327— 30=297— 50=247. 247 76:2 said, 

349— 22/;& //=327— 254(75:2)=73. 248—73=175 

+ 1=176+4/; & 7/=180. 180 74:2 I 

349—22 /> & 7^=327—30=297—50=247—3 /;=243. 243 76:2 assure 

349—22 l> & 7/=327— 50=277— 248=29— 22 /> (248)= 7 74:1 you 

349—33 /;& //=337_.50=277. 277 76:2 your 

349—22 i & 7/=327— 50=277— 248=29. 447—29= 

418-^-l=419+2 /■=421. 421 75:1 divination 

319— 00^^% /,_337— 193=134. 284—134^150+1= 151 74:1 is 

349—22/' & 7/=327— 50=277— 145 (76:2)=132— 

8/;&//=124. 124 74:2 right. 

And he goes on to say that he — 
;)49— 00 /, ^ /,_307— 5o=o77_2i9 (74:0)=58. 

498—58=440+1=441. 441 76:1 never 

349—22 d & 7/=327— 50=277— 248=29+ 193=222 

o ;, ooA 220 75:1 witnessed 

such a performance; that he had to stuff his <juoife (his cap) into his mouth to keep 
from laughing out loud. Shakspere was acting the part of Hotspur, and the Earl 
says: " He speaks the rude tongue of the peasant-towns of the West ever since the 
Conquest," and — 
349—22 b & 7/=337— 49 (76:1)=278. 278 75:2 his 



884 



THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 



V/ord. 



349_23 /; & //=327— 30=297— 50=24 7- 

=98—50=48—1 /^=47. 



-146=101—3 



Pajje and 
Column. 



76:2 



■walk 



is grotesque and laughable. 

And Cecil then gives in detail Shakspere's history after he first came to Lon- 
don, when he was — 

349—22 b & /z=327— 30=297. 

349—22 b & /^=327— 50=277. 448—277=171 + 1= 

849—22 b & /^=327— 30=297— 50 (76:1)=247. 

because Sir Thomas was furious: My — 

349—22 b & //=327— 30=297— 193=104+ /^=104. 
349—22 b & //=327— 50=277. 477—277=170+1 

=171. 
349—22 /' & //=327— 30=297— 50 (76:1)=247. 
508—247=261 + 1=262. 



297 


76:1 


constrained 


172 


76:1 


to 


247 


76:1 


fly 


104 


75:2 


Lord 


171 


75:1 


was 


262 


75:2 


furious. 



And Shakspere would have been — 

349—22 b & //=327— 50=277— 145=132. 

349—22 /' & //=327— 50=277. 
349—22 /; & 7^=327— 30=297— 193=104— 15 b & /i= 
89—50 (76:l)=39+457=496. 

And Cecil's friend Morton — 

349—254 (75:1)=95. 

349—146 (76:2)=203. 448—203=245 + 1=246. 

349—146 (76:2)=203-22 /;=181. 

349_,50 (76:1)=299— 27 /'=272. 

349—254=95—15 b & /;=80+50 (74:2)=130. 

:U9— 253=06. 284—96=188+1=189 + 6 //=195. 

349-14.^=004-3 /; (145)=201. 

349—22 b & //=327— 50=277— 49 (76.1)=228. 

3iJ— 22 b & /i=327— 30=297— 193=104— 15 b & /i= 

349—22/; & //=327— 50=277— 145=132— 2 /'=130. 



132 

277 

496 



77:1 
76:1 

76:2 



hanged 
for 

robbery. 



95 


75:2 


remembered 


246 


76:1 


well 


181 


75:2 


his 


272 


75:2 


appearance 


130 


74:2 


the 


195 


74:1 


first 


201 


77:1 


time 


228 


74:2 


he 


89 


75:2 


ever 


130 


75:2 


saw 



349—22/' & //=327— 30=297— 50 (76:1)=247- 
101. 498—101=397+1=398. 



-146= 



398 



76:1 



him. 



And here we have again, growing out of this root-number, 349, the name of 
Marlowe: 

349— 193(75:1)=156. 156 75.2 More ^ 

349—254 (75: 1)=95— 30=65. 284—65=219+1=220 

+ 6/;&// col.=226. 226 74:1 low.) 

And he describes Shakspere running about the inn-yards, with lanthorn in 
hand, ready to run an errand or hold a horse. Then he says he was a servant of 
Henslow, corroborating the tradition which said he entered the play-house first "as- 
a serviture," or servant. 



349—22^ & 7^=327— 254=73— 30= 
+ 1=206+1 /; col. =207. 



=43. 248—43=205 



207 



74:2 servant. 



And here we have the name of Philip Henslow: 



FRAGMENTS. 



88=; 



Word. 



Page and 
Column. 



349—33 /' & //=337— 50 (74:3)=277— 50(T6:1)=337— 31 

(79:1)=196— -, /; (31)=19l— 1G2=39. 010—39= 

581+3/^=083. 
349—33 (^iL//=337— 30=397— 193 (75;1)=104. 

508—104=404+1=405 + 1 7^=400. 
349—23 b & /^=337— 50=377— 318 (74:3)=59. 38 

59=335 -h 1=236. 



583 
40G 



236 



70: 



74:1 



Philip 
Hence j 

low. ' 

■If I do 



Observe how craftily Philip is hidden in the text. FalstatT says: 
Jillop me with a three-man-beetle." 

The whole thing is forced. A Jillop with a beetle swung by three men is 
absurd; and why are ///;'cv Wir// /;ev//e' all hyphenated? Because if they were not 
this count would not match ! And note, too, how the same number, 516 — 167= 
34q — 22 (^& /i=-=327 produces loiv in More-A'Tt' and Hence /('ti', reaching the same 
word lo7o {lib, 74:1) up the same column by 65 and 59. Why ? Because there are 
six hyphenated words at the end of column i, page 74: " peasant-towns,"' " worm- 
eaten-hole," "smooth-comforts-false," and " true wrongs ;" all in eight lines and 
all below Unv; so that 5g 'witlioiit these extraordinary hyphenations produces low; 
and 65 tvith these extraordinary hyphenations produces the same word lou>. So that 
to produce these two sets of words. More-low and Philip He>iiC-lou\ here given, 
thirteen words had to be pounded together, by hyphenating them, so as to eoitnt as 
fiiw 7cords ! Was ever anything like it seen in the annals of literature? 

But how was Shakspere serving Henslow ? He was — 



349—23 b & //=337— 50=377— 3.0 /- & /'=?5i. 
349—23 b & 7^=327- 30=297— 49 (70:1 )=24s. 508 
—248=200+1=201+6 <^=207. 

for him; he was in his service : 

349—22 /;& 7/=327— 30=297— 50=247— 146 (76:2) 
=101. 577—101=476+1=477. 



351 
367 



75:3 



75:2 



:1 



then 
laboring 

service 



74 


75:3 


The 


84 


75:3 


office 


340 


76:3 


of 


535 


76:3 


call 


533 


76:3 


boy. 



He was acting first in the capacity of call-boy, to summon the actors, when 
their time came, to go upon the stage. Here we have it : 

349—32 b & 7^=327—50=377—193=84—10 /> (193)= 
349—23 b & 7/=337— 50=277— 193=84. 
349_22 /; & 7/=327— 30=297— 50=247— 7 /' & //= 
349—33 b & //=327— 193=134— 5 7^(193)=129— 50 

(76:1)=79. 603—79=524+1=535. 
349—33 b & //=337— 50=377— 193=84— 10 /- (173)= 

74. 458 + 74=533. 

.^nd then we have the whole story of Bacon's trouble at the death of Mavlowe; 
for although in one sense he was glad that so blatant and dangerous a fellow was 
not to be brought before the Council to be questioned as to the authorship of his 
Plays, yet Bacon found himself without a mask. He consulted Harry Percy, 
who recommended Shakspere as a shrewd, prudent, cunning, close-mouthed man, 
not likely to fall into the troubles which had overtaken Marlowe. And we have, in 
the Cipher narrative, the whole story of Bacon sending Percy to interview Shak- 
spere, whom he found not, as he did later, in silken apparel: 

523^167 (74:2)=3o6— 33 b & h (167)=334. 603-334= 
369 + 1=270. 



370 



r6:3 



He 



886 



THE CIPHER A'ARRATIVE. 



523- 
523- 
523- 
533- 
523- 

523- 

523- 
523- 

523 

523 

523 

523 



-167=356- 
-167=356- 
-167=356- 
-167=356- 
-167=356- 



-30=304. 
-22 b & //=334— 50=284. 
-22 d & /^=234— 50=284- 
-22 b & /;=334— 30=304. 
-22 d & /i=334— 30=304. 



=143-i- 1=144. 

-167=356—22 l> & /;=334. 457-1 
1=124. 

-167=356- 22/'& /^=334. 
-167=356—22 d & 7^=334—50 (74:2)=284— 163 
(78:1)=121— 1 A col.=120. 120 

—167=356-22 /> & //=334— 50=284— 50 (76:1)= 
234—146=88—3 d (146)=85. 577—85=492-^1= 493 
-167=356—22 d & /^=334— 50=284— 50=234— 
146=88—3 /> (146)=85. 85 

-167=356—22 /> & //=334— 50=284— 49 (76:1)= 
235— 3// col.=232. 232 

-167=356-22 l> & //=334— 50=284. 603—284 
=319+1=320. 320 





Word. 

304 


Page and 
Column. 

75:1 


found 




284 


76:1 


him 


t /' col.= 


280 


76:2 


not 




304 


76:1 


in 


447—304 










144 


75:1 


silken 


=123+ 










124 
334 


76:2 
76:2 


apparel, 
with 



76.2 silver 



77:1 buckles 



77:1 



in 



76:2 his 

76:2 shoes. 



And here we have the very picture of how Percy drew him aside one night 
at the Curtain: 

523—167=356—22 b & //=334— 50=284. 284 75:1 drew 
523—167=356—22 /' & /,=334— 30=304— 50 (76:1)= 

254— 145 (76:2)=109. 109 77:2 aside 

523— 167=356— 22^ & 7^=334— 30=304— 13^ col. = 291 75:1 night 

and made him an offer of one-half of all that might be earned by the Plays if he 
would father them. But I must stay my hand and reserve all this for the future. 

But here is another fragment, and the last, which I will throw into the hopper. 
When the wounded Shakspere, after his fight with the gamekeepers, was bailed out 
and taken to his father's house, the village doctor, an apothecary, was sent for; and 
he told Shakspere's father that the young man had better fly; that, though his wounds 
were not dangerous, he had but a slender chance for his life, because of the wrath 
of Sir Thomas. He — 



505— 167=338— 22 ^» .v A=316. 



316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 
316- 



-50 (76:1)=216— 9 /' & //=207. 
448—266=182+1=183. 



=266— 50(76:1)=216. 284—216=68+1 
14,5=122. 448—122=326+1=327. 
.50=217—145=72. 577—72=505+1 
50=216—145=71—5 l> & 7/=66. 
145=122. 577—122=455 + 1=456. 



-50=266- 

-50=266. 

-.50=266—49=217—145=72—49=23+457= 

-193=123. 

-50 (74:2) 

-49=267- 

-49=267- 

-50=266- 

-49=267- 

-49=267—145=122—3 /> (145)=119. 

-253=63. 



448—63—385+1=386. 



207 
183 
480 
123 
=69 
327 
506 
66 
456 
119 
386 



76:1 
76:1 
76:2 
75:2 
74:1 
76:1 
77:1 
76:1 
77:1 
76:1 
76:1 



feared 
that 

he 
had 

but 

a 
slender 
chance 

for 

his 

life. 



And he advised: 



FRAGMENTS. 



S87 



Page and 

Word. Column. 



316—193=123—15 bsz h (193)=108. 
that — 

316—49=267. 457—267=190+1=191. 
316—50=266—3 /i=268. 
316-49=267—145=122—3 /' (145)=119. 
310—49=267. 457—267=190+1=191 + 5 ^=196. 
316— 50=266— 50=216— 50=166— l/i=165. 

And he proceeds to tell the gossip of the village: 

316—193=123—15 b & h (I93)=l 08— 50=58. 603— 

58=545 + 1=546. 
316—145=171. 
316—145=171. 

316—145=171. 448—171=277+1=278. 
316—50=266—145=121—2 //=119. 



108 



76:1 advised 



316—145=171- 

316—248=68. 

316—30=286- 

316—49=207- 

316—49=267. 

316—49=267- 

316—145=171- 



-3 /Ul4o)=168. 

■49 (76:1)=237. 
5 h col. =262. 
603—267=336+1 
■15 b & //=252. 
-3 /; (145)=168. 577 



337. 



-168=409+1= 



603—236=367+1=368+ 



=168. 577—168=409+1= 



-118 



316—30=286—145=141 . 
316—30=286—50=236. 

8 <^=376. 
316— 145=171— 3/; (145): 

410+3/^=413. 
316—50=266—145=121—3 /; (145)=118. 

=459+1=460+3/? col. =463. 
316—145 (76:2)=171. 577—171=406+1=407. 
316—30=286—49=237. 457—237=220+1=221 + 

5 b col.=226. 
316- 193=123— 15 b & //=108. 448—108=340+1= 
316—50 (74:2)=266— 49(76:1)=217. 603—217=386 

+ 1=387+3^ (145)=390. 
316— 30(74:2)=266— 50 (76:1)=216. 
316—50 (74:2)=266— 50 (76:1)=216— 145=71. 284— 

71=213+1=214+6 //=220. 
316—50=266—146=120—3 b col. =11 7. 
316—49=267—7 /i & ^=260. 

316—50=266—145=121. 498—121=377+1=378. 
316— 146=170— 3 <^ (146)=1 67. 508—167=341 + 1= 

343+6=348. 
310—193=123—15 b & h (193)=108— 50=58+457= 

51.5— 3/'=512. 
316—193=123—49 (76:1)=74. 
316—49 (76:1)=267— 14.5=122. 
316—145 (76:2)=171— 145=26. 448—26=322+1= 
316— 49(T6;1)=267— 15 /' & h col. =2.52. 
316—248 (74:2)=68. 



191 


76:2 


he 


263 


76:2 


should 


119 


77:1 


leave 


196 


76:2 


at 


165 


75:2 


once. 



546 
171 

171 
278 
119 
168 
68 
237 
262 
337 
252 
410 
141 

376 

413 

463 

407 

226 
341 

390 

216 

220 

117 
260 

378 

348 



76:2 
77:1 
76:2 
76:1 
76:1 
76:1 
74:1 
76:2 
78:1 
76:2 
76 1 
77:1 
76:1 

76:2 

77:1 

77:1 
77:1 

76:2 
76:1 

76:2 
75:2 

74:1 
76:1 
76:2 
76:1 

75:2 



I 

heard 

say 

that 

his 

Lordship, 

who 

is 

an 

honest 

man, 

but 

not 

as 

patient 

as 
Job, 

was 
in 

the 
greatest 

rage, 

and 

said 

he 

is 



512 


76:2 


going 


74 


76:2 


to 


122 


77:1 


hang 


323 


76:1 


every 


252 


7';:1 


mm 


03 


74:1 


who 



Word. 


Page and 
Column. 




61 


75:1 


was 


171 


76:1 


engaged 


256 


75:1 


in 


358 


76:1 


the 


394 


78:1 


destruction 


113 


76:1 


of 


154 


77:2 


his 


324 


76:1 


fish 


32S 


76:1 


pond. 



888 7 IJE CIPHER NA RKA 7 '7 / 'E. 



316—248 (74:2)=68— 7 b col.=61. 
316— 145(76:2)=171. 

316—248=68+193=261-5 h & h col. =256. 
316—30=286—145=141. 498-141=357-^-1=358. 
316—50=266—32 (79 :2)=234+ 162=396— 2 // col.= 
316— .50=266— 145 (76:2)=121— 3 b (145)=118— 

5 /' & h col. =113. 
316—162 (78:1)=154. 

316—30=286—161 {78:1)=125. 448—125=323+1= 
316—145 (76:2)=171. 498—171=327+1=328. 

And Shakspere's father tells him that many a man had been hanged for a 
less offense; and that Sir Thomas would not scruple to give him the full extent of 
the law; and that it did not take much in that day to send a man to the gallows, and 
that he had better fiy. And he sends him off with his parental blessing and a very 
little money. 

And here, before closing the Cipher narrative, I would say that it may be 
objected that I have not given in detail much of the story set forth in the pros- 
pectus and preliminary notice of my book, as to Bacon's attempted suicide and 
Percy's visit to Stratford. This is true, but I have given much that I did not 
promise, such as Shakspere's marriage and the description of Ann Ha"thaway. 
And instead of furnishing the reader with a book of seven hundred pages, as 
promised, I submit to him a book of nearly one thousand pages. 

And the question may be asked, " Did Shakspere know there was a cipher in 
the Plays asserting Bacon's authorship and exposing his own pretensions?" I 
think he did. I think that famous visit of Ben Jonson to Stratford, shortly before 
his death, conveyed to him the intelligence, and that he requested Bacon to write 
an inscription for his tombstone that would prevent his bones being cast out 
when the exposure came. But he took a still further and most remarkable pre- 
caution. 

There has been found recently (1884) in the Bodleian Library an old letter from 
a certain William Hall, a Queen's College man, who took his B. A. degree in 
October, 1694, to Edward Thwaites, of Queen's College, a well-known Anglo- 
Saxon scholar. Halliwell-Phillipps pronounces the letter genuine, and has printed 
it for private circulation, with a preface, in which he shows that it was probably 
written in December, 1694, seventy-eight years after Shakspere's death. Mr. 
Hall was visiting Stratford and wrote to his " dear Neddy." He quotes the famous 
lines on the tombstone, and adds, " The little learning these verses contain would 
be a very strong argument of the want of it in the author." He says that Shak- 
spere ordered those four lines to be cut on his tombstone during his life-time, and 
that he did so because he feared his bones might some day be removed; and he 
further says that they buried him '' ftib/ sc7'e)itct'ii fc-ct deep; deep enough to secure 
him !" 

And so, seventeen feet below the surface, and with those famous lines above 
him: 

Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
And cursed be he that moves my bones, 

Shakspere awaits the revelation of the Cipher. 

c • 

D - - 

IN ' 



CHAPTER XXII. 

A WORD PERSONAL. 



Report me and my causes right 
To the unsatisfied. Hamlet, v^ 5. 



I BEGAN this book with an apology; I end it with another. 
No one can be more conscious of its defects than I am. So 
great a subject demanded the utmost care, deliberation and per- 
fection; while my work has, on the other hand, been performed with 
the utmost haste and under many adverse circumstances. 

It was my misfortune to have announced, in 1884, that I believed 
I had found a Cipher in the Plays. From the time I put forth that 
claim until the copy was placed in the hands of the publishers, I 
made no effort to advertise my book. But the assertion was so 
startling, and concerned writings of such universal interest, that it 
could not be suffered to fall unnoticed. I felt, at the same time, 
that I owed some duties to the nineteenth century, as well as to the 
sixteenth, and hence my work was greatly broken in upon by 
public affairs. After a time the reading world became clamorous 
for the proofs of my surprising assertion; and many were not slow 
to say that I was either an impostor or a lunatic. Goaded by these 
taunts, I made arrangements to publisli before I was really ready to 
do so; and then set to work, under the greatest strain and the 
highest possible pressure, to try to keep my engagements with my 
publishers. But the reader can readily conceive how slowly such a 
Cipher work as this must have advanced, when every word was a 
sum in arithmetic, and had to be counted and verified again and 
again. In the meantime upon my poor devoted head was let loose 
a perfect flood-tide of denunciation, ridicule and misrepresentation 
from three-fourths of the newspapers of America and England. I 
could not pause in my work to defend myself, but had to sit, in the 
midst of an arctic winter, and patiently endure it all, while working 

889 



Scjc THE CIPHER NARRA TIVE. 

from tun to twelve hours every day, at a kind of mental toil the 
most exhausting the human mind is capable of. 

These facts will, I trust, be my excuse for all the crudeness, 
roughness, repetitions and errors apparent in these pages. 

In the Patent Ofifice they require the inventor to state clearly 
what he claims. I will follow that precedent. 

I admit, as I have said before, that my workmanship in the 
elaboration of the Cipher is not perfect. There are one or two 
essential points of the Cipher rule that I have not fully worked 
out. I think that I see the complete rule, but I need more leisure 
to elaborate and verify it abundantly, and reduce my workmanship 
to mathematical exactness. 

But I claim that, beyond a doubt, there is a Cipher in the so-called 
Shakespeare Plays. 

The proofs are cumulative. I have shown a thousand of them. 

No honest man can, I think, read this book through and say 
that there is nothing extraordinary, unusual and artificial in the 
construction of the text of /i'/ and 2(^/ Z^^v/zj IV. No honest man 
will, I think, deny the multitudinous evidences I present that the 
text words, brackets and hyphens have been adjusted arithmet- 
ically to the necessity of matching the ends of scenes and fragments 
of scenes with certain root-numbers of a Cipher. No man can" pre- 
tend that such words and phrases as the following could come in 
this, or any other book, by accident, held together in every case 
by the same Cipher numbers: 

The Names of Plays. 

r. Measure for Measure, three times repeated. 

2. Contention of York and Lancaster, three times repeated. 

3. The Merry Wives of Windsor, twice repeated. 

4. Richard the Second, twice repeated. 

5. Richard the Third, given once. 

6. King John, twice repeated. 

The Names of Persons. 

1. Shalispere, repeated about twenty times. 

2. Marlotve, repeated several times. 

3. Archer, used once. 

4. Philip Henslow, used once in full, and twice without first name. 

5. Field, several times repeated. 

6. Cecil, many times repeated. 

7. The Earl of Shre-d'sbitry, two or three times repeated. 



A WORD PERSONAL. 891 

8. Sir Thomas Lucy, twice repeated, 
g. LLayi^<ard. 

10. LLarry Percy, many times repeated. 

1 1 . Master Francis. 

12. My Uncle Burleigh, twice repeated. ' 

13. My Lord John, the Bishop of Worcester, used twice. 

14. Dethick, King of Arms. 

15. Ann Hathazuav. 

16. Ann U'hatley, twice repeated. 

1 7. King Harry, father of the present Queen. 
iS. Sir Nicholas, twice repeated. 

19. Sir Walter. 

Names ok Pl.\ces. 

1. St. Albans^ twice repeated. 

2. The Fortune Play-house. 

3. The Curtain Play-house. 

4. Neiu-Place. 

5. Gui negate. 

6. The Fire of Smith field. 

7. Holland. 

S. The Lo'iv Countries. 

9. The fish pond, twice repeated. 

Significant Phrases. 

1. The old Jade, many times repeated. 

2. The old termagant, many times repeated. 

3. My cousin, many times repeated. 

4. The roval tyrant. 

5. The royal maiden. 

6. The 1-ascally knave. 

7. A butcher s 'prentice. 

8. Glove-making, two or tliree times repeated. 

9. The King's evil. 

10. Fifteen hundred and fifteen. 

Now I submit to all fair-minded men whether this is not an 
astonishing array of words to find in about a dozen pages of the 
text of two plays; and whether there is any other writing on earth 
in which, in the same space, these words can be duplicated. I can- 
not believe there is. But remember that not only are these sig- 
nificant and most necessary words found in this brief compass, but 
they fit exactly into sentences every word of which grows out of 
the same determinate Cipher number. But, in addition to all this, 
remember the dense packing of some columns, and the sparse con- 
dition of the adjoining columns; remember how heart is spelled 
/w/-/ where it refers to Sliakspere's sister; remember how and 1 1 is 



892 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

spelled a?t't, and not and't., where allusion is had to Bacon's aunt: 
remember how dear is spelt deerc when it refers to deer; remember 
how sperato is separated by a hair space into sper afc\ so as to give 
the terminal syllable of Shake-sper; remember how the rare word 
rabbit is found in the text precisely cohering, arithmetically, with 
hunting. Then turn to the Cipher story on page 79 of the Folio, 
where not only scattered words come out, but where whole long 
series of words are so adjusted, with the aid of the brackets and 
hyphens, as to follow precisely the order of the words in the play ! 
Then remember how every part of this Cipher story fits precisely 
into what we know historically to be true; and, although much 
of it is new, that part is, in itself, probable and reasonable. 

The world will either have to admit that there is a Cipher in the 
Plays, or that in the construction of this narrative I have manifested 
an ingenuity as boundless as that which I have attributed to Bacon. 
But I make no such claim. No ingenuity could create the u>ords 
necessary to tell this extraordinary story, unless they were in the 
text. Take Bulwer's Ric/ielien, or Byron's Manfred, or Goldsmith's 
S/ie Stoops to Conquer, or any other dramatic composition of the last 
hundred years, and you will seek in vain for even one-tenth of 
the significant words found herein; and as to making any of these 
modern plays tell a coherent, historical tale, by counting with the 
same mwiber from the ends of scenes and fragments of scenes, it 
would be altogether and absolutely impossible. 

I do not blame any man for having declared a priori against the 
possibility of there being a Cipher in the Plays. On the face of it 
such a claim is improbable, and, viewed from our nineteenth century 
standpoint, and in the light of our free age, almost absurd. I 
could not, in the first instance, have believed it myself. I advanced 
to the conception slowly and reluctantly. I expected to find only 
a brief assertion of authorship, a word or two to a column. If any 
man had told me five years ago that these two plays were such an 
exquisite and intricate piece of microscopic mosaic-work as the facts 
show them to be, I should have turned from him with contempt. I 
could not have believed that any man would involve himself in 
such incalculable labor as is implied in the construction of such a 
Cipher. We may say the brain was abnormal that created it. But 



A WORD PERSOXAL. 893 

how, after all, can we judge such an intellect by the ordinary 
standard of mankind? If he sought immortality he certainly 
has achieved it, for, once the human family grasps the entirety of 
this incondeivable work, it will be drowned in an ocean of wonder. 
The Plays may lose their charm; the English language may perish; 
but tens of thousands of years from now, if the world and civilization 
endure, mankind will be talking about this extraordinary welding 
together of fact and fiction; this tale within a tale; this sublime and 
supreme triumph of the human intellect. Beside it the ///W will be 
but as the rude song of wandering barbarians, and Paradise Lost q. 
temporary offshoot of Judaism. 

I trust no honest man will feel constrained, for consistency's sake, 
because he has judged my book unheard, to condemn it heard. It 
will avail nothing to assail me. I am not at issue. And you cannot 
pound the life out of a fact with your fists. A truth has the inde- 
structibility of matter. It is part of God: the threads of continu- 
ity tie it to the throne of the Everlasting. 

Edmund Burke said in a debate in Parliament about the popu- 
lation of the American colonies: "While we are disputing they 
grow to it." And so, even while the critics are writing their essays, 
to demonstrate that all I have revealed is a fortuitous combination 
of coincidence, keen and able minds will be taking up my imperfect 
clues and reducing the Cipher rule to such perfection that it will be 
as useless to deny the presence of the sun in the heavens as to deny 
the existence of the inner story in the Plays. 

And what a volume of historical truths will roll out of the text 
of this great volume ! The inner life of kings and queens, the high- 
est, perhaps the basest, of their kind; the struggles of factions in the 
courts; the interior view of the birth of religions; the first coloniza- 
tion of the American continent, in which Bacon took an active part, 
and something of which is hidden in The Tempest; the death of Mary 
Queen of Scots; the Spanish Armada, told in Love's Labor Lost; the 
religious wars on thecontinent; the story of Henry of Navarre; the real 
biography of Essex; the real story of Bacon's career; his defense of his 
life, hidden in Henry VIII., his own downfall, in cipher, being told 
in the external story of the downfall of Wolsey. What historical 
facts may we not expect, of which that account of the introduction 



^94 THE CIPHER NARRATIVE. 

of " the dreaded and incurable malady " into England is a specimen; 
what philosophical reflections; what disquisitions on religion; what 
profound and unrestrained meditations ! It will be, in short, the 
inner story of the most important era in human history, told by the 
keenest observer and most powerful writer that has ever lived. And 
then think of the light that will be thrown upon the Plays them- 
selves; their purposes, their history, their meaning ! A great light 
bursting from a tomb, and covering with its royal effulgence the 
very cradle of English Literature. 

And so I trust my long-promised book to the tender mercies of 
my fellow-men, saying to them in the language of the old rhyme: 

Be to its faults a little blind, 
And to its virtues very kind. 





BOOh^ III. 



CONCLU/iON/- 



"Dclzvyed, 
5ut nothing aJtered.WhJvt \y/dsA 2mt\.* 



BOOK III. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

DELIA BACON. 

Patience and sorrow strove 
Which should express her goodliest. 

King- Lear, it, J. 

"X T O work in regard to the Baconian theory would be complete 
-^ ^ without some reference to Miss Delia Bacon, who first an- 
nounced to the world the belief that Francis Bacon was the real 
author of the Plays. 

America should especially cherish the memory of this distin- 
guished lady. Our literature has been, to too great an extent, a col- 
onial imitation, oftentimes diluted, of English originals. But here 
is a case where one of our own transplanted race, out of the depths of 
her own consciousness, marshaled to her conclusions by her pro- 
found knowledge, advanced to a great and original conception. 

I. ; Bacon's Biography. 

I am indebted to Mr. W. H. Wyman' for the following notes of 
Miss Bacon's biography: 

Delia Bacon was born in Tallmadge, Ohio, February 2, 1811. She was the 
daughter of Rev. David Bacon, one of the early Western missionaries, and sister 
of the late Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon. She was educated at Miss Catharine E. 
Beecher's school, in Hartford, and is described as a woman of rare intellect and 
attainments. Her profession was that of a teacher and lecturer: the first woman, 

' Bacon-Shakespeare Bibliography. 

899 



900 CONCL USIONS. 

Mrs. Farrar says, whom she had ever known to speak in public. At this time 
she resided in Boston. Having conceived the idea of the Baconian authorship, 
she became a monomaniac on the subject. Visiting England, in 1853, in search of 
proofs for her theory, she spent five years there; first at St. Albans, where she sup- 
posed Bacon to have written the Plays; then at London, where she wrote The PJiiloso- 
phy of Shakespeare Unfolded, and subsequently at Stratford-on-Avon. Here, after 
the publication and non-success of her book, she lost her reason wholly and 
entirely. She was returned to her friends in Hartford, in April, 1858, and died 
there, September 2, 1S59. 

Mrs. John Farrar, in her interesting little book, Recollections of 
Seventy Years, (pp. 319, etc.), gives the following account of Miss 
Bacon's first appearance as a lecturer: 

The first lady whom I ever heard deliver a public lecture was Miss Delia 
Bacon, who opened her career in Boston, as teacher of history, by giving a pre- 
liminarv discourse describing her method, and urging upon her hearers the impor- 
tance of the study. 

I had called on her that day for the first time, and found her very nervous and 
anxious about her first appearance in public. She interested me at once, and I 
resolved to hear her speak. 

Her person was tall and commanding, her finely-shaped head was well set on 
her shoulders, her face was handsome and full of expression, and she moved with 
grace and dignity. The hall in which she spoke was so crowded that I could not 
get a scat, but she spoke so well that I felt no fatigue from standing. She was at 
first a little embarrassed, but soon became so engaged in recommending the study 
of history to all present, that she became eloquent. 

Her course of oral lessons or lectures on history interested her class of ladies 
so much that she was induced to repeat them, and I heard several who attended 
them speak in the highest terms of them. She not only spoke but read well, and 
when on the subject of Roman history she delighted her audience by giving them, 
with great effect, some of Macaulay's Lays. 

I persuaded her to give her lessons in Cambridge, and she had a very appre- 
ciative class, assembled in the large parlor of the Brattle House. She spoke with- 
out notes, entirely from her own well-stored memory; and she would so group her 
facts as to present to us historical pictures calculated to make a lasting impression. 
She was so much admired and liked in Cambridge, that a lady there invited her to 
spend the winter with her as her guest, and I gave her the use of my parlor for 
another course of lectures. In these she brought down her history to the time of 
the birth of Christ, and I can never forget how clear she made it to us that the 
world was only then made fit for the advent of Jesus. She ended with a fine cli- 
max that was quite thrilling. 

In her Cambridge course she had maps, charts, models, pictures, and every- 
thing she needed to illustrate her subject. This added much to her pleasure and 
ours. All who saw her then must rem.ember how handsome she was, and how 
gracefully she used her wand in pointing to the illustrations of her subject. I used 
to be reminded by her of Raphael's sibyls, and she often spoke like an oracle. 

She and a few of her class would often stay after the lesson and take tea with 
me, and then she would talk delightfully for the rest of the evening. It was very 
inconsiderate in us to allow her to do so, and when her course ended she was half 
dead with fatigue. 



DELIA BACON. 90 r 

II. Her Love Affair. 

Delia Bacon's life was one of many sorrows. It would almost 
seem as if there is some great law of compensation running through 
human lives, so that those who are to be happy in immortal fame 
too often pay for it by unhappy careers on earth. It is difficult 
to conceive of a more wretched life than was that of Francis Bacon. 
For a few short years only he rode the waves of triumphant suc- 
cess; but his youth was enshrouded in poverty, and his age cov- 
ered with dishonor. Even the great philosophical works, which the 
world now holds as priceless, were received with general ridicule 
and contempt; but his fame is to-day the greatest on earth, and will 
so continue as long as our civilization endures. 

And we seem to see the same great law of compensation run- 
ning through the life of poor, unhappy Delia Bacon. Filled with a 
divine enthusiasm for truth, her ideas were received by an ignorant 
and bigoted generation with shouts of mockery. Nay, more, as if 
fortune had not done its worst in this, her very heart was lacerated 
and her womanly pride wounded, by a creature in the shape of a 
man — a Reverend ( ! ) Alexander McWhorter. 

A writer in the Philadelphia Times of December 26th, 1886, 
gives the following account of this extraordinary affair: 

Four young men were smoking in a chamber at a hotel in New Haven. It is 
not to be assumed that they were drinking as well as smoking ; for at least one of 
them had been a theological student in the Yale Divinity School, who was then a 
resident licentiate of the university; and another was a nephew of a professor in 
the theological department of that institution. Although they were so near to the 
" cloth," they were a set of " jolly dogs," these young men, and so not averse to 
a good cigar . Indeed, the resident licentiate, in whose room they were gathered, 
was not only a good fellow, but a very rich young man. Presently, a waiter en- 
tered and delivered a note to the host. It was couched in the following words: 

Miss Delia Bacon will be happy to see Mr. at the rooms at the 

Hotel this evening, or at any time that may be convenient to him. 

Delia Bacon was the daughter of a Michigan missionary, and when she came 
east in her girlhood, it was to qualify herself as a teacher. At school she made 
rapid progress in everything except in English composition, to excel in which she 
most aspired, and, later on, it was conceded that her learning was not only unus- 
ual, but extraordinary, in a woman. She was, indeed, from the outset of her 
career as an instructor, a sibyl in aspect, as in fact; and her classes at New Haven 
and Hartford, when she succeeded in establishing them, soon became the fashion. 
Her lectures, for such her lessons really were, were attended by the most culti- 
vated ladies of the two chief cities of Connecticut, the wives of the governors of 
the State, the judges of the courts, the professors in the colleges, and other 



902 CONCLUSIONS. 

dignitaries, who came to her to learn wisdom. It was her custom to give receptions 
at her parlors, and, as she was admitted to be particular and discriminating in her 
invitations, it was esteemed an honor, especially by young men, to receive them. 
This accounts for the peculiar phraseology of the letter quoted above, and it would 
deprive her invitation to the resident licentiate of any indelicacy, although he had 
not been formally presented to her, if she had reason to know that he desired to 
call upon her. 

Such was the case. 

The young theologian lived at the same hotel, and had sought an introduction. 
He was ten years her junior. He was well known, and was a young man of good 
repute. He and Miss Bacon met daily at the same table. She had no objection 
to the introduction, but the person who it was proposed should make it was ob- 
jectionable to her. She therefore considered the request for an introduction as 
equivalent to the ceremony, and asked the young man to call. Had the resident 
licentiate been a gentleman who was offended at the informal character of the 
invitation, he would simply have put the letter into the fire and said nothing about 
it. The young theologian, from a want of that delicacy he affected to find absent 
in another, chose to adopt a different course. He read the note to his companions. 
He and they considered the invitation a gross violation of propriety in the lady. 
It was with them the subject of uproarious mirth ; but the resident licentiate 
accepted the invitation all the same, and, after making the call, wrote a ludicrous 
account of the affair for the amusement of one of his classmates, a clergyman, 
already ordained and ministering to a charge. But his first visit was not his last. 
He was more than pleased with Delia Bacon's intellectual attainments — he was 
interested in her personal attractions. He called upon her frequently. He showed 
her marked attention. He acted as her escort in public. He professed for her a 
profound and lasting affection, and would not take " no " for an answer. He even 
followed her to a watering-place, with no other excuse than to be near her. These' 
two — the learned lady of New Haven, always busy and already impressed with 
the notion that she had " the world's work " to perform, and the resident licentiate, 
idle, because he was rich, and living near the university for years after he should 
have been caring for souls — were lovers. She had allowed him to ensnare her 
affections, notwithstanding the discrepancy in their years. He was completely 
fascinated by the brilliant talk of a refined and cultivated woman, to whom the 
whole field of belles lettres was a familiar garden. They read and studied to- 
gether, and, with two such natures, it was only natural that their talk should be 
more of books than of love. She even confided to him her favorite theory that 
was afterwards to take complete possession of her, that Shakspere was not the 
author of Shakespeare's Plays, and that they were written in cipher in order to 
conceal for a time a profound system of political philosophy which it was her mis- 
sion to reveal. He approved these ideas and encouraged the delusion in its inci- 
pient stages. Then, when he tired of the flirtation, as all men do who fall in love 
with women older than themselves, he turned viciously upon his uncomplaining 
victim and contemptuously characterized an affair, that had begun with baseness 
on his part, a literary intimacy. . . . Indeed, the very person to whom objection 
was made by the lady became from the very outset the confidant of her admirer, 
and either saw or heard or read everything she subsequently wrote to him. Besides 
exposing her correspondence, the resident licentiate, while he was paying devout 
court to the lady, was, also, at all times, secretly holding her up to ridicule among 
his friends, and, when it was reported he was engaged to marry her, he indig- 
nantly declared his surprise that any one who knew him should think him such a 
fool. . . . 



DELIA BACON. 92J 

The matter grew, after a time, into a scandal, and eventuated 
in a trial before a council of the Congregational Church. 

The clerical Lothario asserted in his own behalf that he had never made a 
declaration of affection — that, so far as he was concerned, there had been no sen- 
timent —not a thimbleful. In disproof of this, Miss Bacon's mother and brother 
testified that they had seen a letter from her suitor to her that was " a real love 
letter." This letter contained an account of the progress of the affection of the 
gay young cleric for the tall sibyl. In it were such expressions as, " Then I loved 
you." " I have loved you purely, fervently," " Though you should hate me, my 
sentiment for you would remain unchanged." He said he would retain this senti- 
ment through life, in death, and after death. . . . The toothsome gossip once begun, 
it went from pious tongue to pious ear and from pious ear to pious tongue, until 
it had spread all over the State of Connecticut, and even penetrated New York and 
Boston. Not only were the old Professor and his family concerned in the circula- 
tion of the story almost from the outset, but his house became the resort of those 
who wished to hear it. Day after day his reception-room was thronged with those 
who came to listen to the tale of wonder. As we have seen, other clergymen and 
professors repeated the story everywhere on pretense of defending their clerical 
brother. It was in this way that " the facts in the case" reached the ears of Miss 
Bacon's friends. 

" From village to village, from city to city, the marvel spread," wrote Cather- 
ine Beecher afterwards, " till almost every village in New England was agitated 
with it. No tale of private scandal had ever before been known to create so exten- 
sive an excitement." 

It is scarcely surprising that as the tale was told the wonder grew. The story 
of a literary lady of five and thirty angling for a clergyman of twenty-five, and 
ensnaring his unsophisticated affections, — it was always told with his share in the 
courtship carefully excluded, — could not fail to prove grateful to the ears of good 
people to whom society scandal and sensations were a boon not often afforded. 

No one can read all this without thrills of indignation at the 
base wretch who could thus, for the amusement of his friends 
trifle with the affections of a great and noble-hearted woman. And 
it is not difficult to realize what must have been the feelings of the 
eloquent scholar to find herself the talk of all New England, and 
to have the tenderest emotions of her heart laid bare, and made the 
subject of discussion by a public Congregational Church council. 
The whole thing is horrible. And the writer in the Philadelphia 
Times intimates that this great trial of her heart and pride had 
something to do with the final overthrow of the poor lady's reason. 

III. The Putnam's Magazine Article. 

It would seem that the thought that Shakspere did not write 
the Plays was conceived by Miss Bacon as far back as 1845 ; but it 
was not until 1856 that she announced her belief to the world. 



904 CONCL USIONS, 

This announcement was made in Putnam's Magazine of January, 
1856, in the first article of that number. The editor was careful to 
accompany the essay by a disavowal of any belief on his part in 
the truth of the theory. He said : 

In commencing the publication of these bold, original, and most ingenious and 
interesting speculations upon the real authorship of Shakespeare's Plays, it is proper 
for the editor of Putnam's Monthly, in disclaiming all responsibility for their start- 
ling view of the question, to say that they are the result of long and conscientious 
investigation on the part of the learned and eloquent scholar, their author; and that 
the editor has reason to hope that they will be continued through some future num- 
bers of the magazine. 

But they were not continued. I have been told that Miss 
Bacon's friends interfered to prevent the publication of any more 
such startling and radical ideas. Mrs. Farrar gives a different 
explanation. Be that as it may, this essay is the only one that 
appeared from her pen in any American publication; and it is the 
one thing that will save Putnains Magazine from being forgotten. 

Much has been said about Miss Bacon's insanity, as if it had 
some necessary connection with the Baconian heresy and grew out 
of it. And every one who has denied that the poacher of Stratford 
wrote the Plavs has been met with the reminder that Miss Bacon 
died in a mad-house. It seems to have been forgotten that a great 
many worthy people have died in mad-houses who believed that 
Shakspere himself wrote the Plays; and a great many others have 
ended their lives there who never heard of either Shakspere or 
Bacon. And for one to go out of his mind implies that he has 
some mind to go out of, and hence Miss Bacon's critics have spoken 
from the assurance of positive safety. The truth is, insanity does 
not come from opinions or theories, but it is a purely physical 
disease, implying degeneration of the substance-matter of the brain. 
A theory should stand or fall by itself, on its own merits, upon the 
facts that can be adduced in its support; not by reference to 
the personal careers of its advocates. If this were not so, what 
religion on earth could not, in this way, be proved false? For the 
insane asylums are full of people whose mania is some form or 
other of religious belief. And the poet tells us, that 

From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow. 
And Swift expires a driveler and a show. 



DELIA BACON. 



90s 



But does it follow that Marlborough was not one of the greatest 
and most successful military leaders that ever lived; or that Swift 
was not a powerful and incisive writer and thinker? 

The injustice and absurdity of all such arguments is further 
shown in the fact that the first book ever written, in defense of 
Shakspere, against the assaults of Delia Bacon and William Henry 
Smith, was the work of one Geo. H. Townsend, of London, pub- 
lished in 1857; and the author of it subsequently became crazy and 
committed suicide. But no Baconian ever argued therefrom that 
every man who believed Shakspere wrote the Plays was necessarily 
a lunatic and would end by self-murder, unless sent, as Grant 
White suggested, to the insane asylum. The Shakspereans have 
been insolent because they were cowardly. They felt that the uni- 
versal prejudice and ignorance sustained them; inasmuch as the 
clear-seeing and original thinkers are necessarily in the minority in 
all generations. In all ages it has been the multitude who were 
wrong, and the few who were right, 

IV. Her Visit to England. 

Mrs. Farrar gives the following account of Delia Bacon's visit to 
England: 

She expressed a great desire to go to England, and I told her she could go 
and pay all her expenses by her historical lessons. Belonging to a religious sect 
in which her family held a distinguished place, she would be well received by the 
same denomination in England, and have the best of assistance in obtaining classes. 
After talking this up for some time, I perceived that I was talking in vain. She 
had no notion of going to England to teach history; all she wanted to go for waste 
obtain proof of the truth of her theory, that Shakspere did not write the Plays 
attributed to him, but that Lord Bacon did. This was sufficient to prevent my 
ever again encouraging her going to England, or talking with her about Shak- 
spere. The lady whom she was visiting put her copy of his works out of sight, 
and never allowed her to converse with her on this, her favorite subject. We 
considered it dangerous for Miss Bacon to dwell on this fancy, and thought that, 
if indulged, it might become a monomania, which it subsequently did. 

She went from Cambridge to Northampton, and spent the summer on Round 
Hill, as a boarder, at a hydropathic establishment. Separated from all who knew 
her, and were interested in her, she gave herself up to her favorite theme. She 
believed that the Plays called Shakespeare's contained a double meaning, and that 
a whole system of philosophy was hidden in them, which the world at that time 
was not prepared to receive, and therefore Lord Bacon had left it to posterity thus 
disguised. At Round Hill she spent whole days and weeks in her chamber, took 
no exercise, and ate scarcely any food, till she became seriously ill. After much 
suffering she recovered and went to New York. To pay her expenses she was 



9o6 CONCL US-IONS. 

obliged to give a course of lessons in history; but her heart was not in them — she 
was meditating a flight to England. Her old friends and her relatiotis ivotild not, 
of course, fttrnish Iter zoi/h the means of doing what they highly disapproved; but 
some new acquaintances in New York believed in her theory, and were but too 
happy to aid her in making known her grand discovery. A handsome wardrobe 
and ample means were freely bestowed upon her, and kind friends attended her to 
the vessel which was to carry her to England on her Quixotic expedition. Her 
mind was so devoted to the genius of Lord Bacon that her first pilgrimage was to 
St. Albans, where he had lived when in retirement, and where she supposed he 
had written all those Plays attributed to Shakespeare. She lived there a year, and 
then came to London, all alone and unknown, to seek a home there. She 
thus describes her search after lodgings: 

On a dark December day, about one o'clock, I came into this metropolis, 
intending, with the aid of Providence, to select, between that and nightfall, a res- 
idence in it. I had copied from the T^/wcj several advertisements of lodging-houses, 
but none of them suited me. The cab-driver, perceiving what I was in search of, 
began to make suggestions of his own, and, finding that he was a man equal to the 
emergency, and knowing that his acquaintance with the subject was larger than 
mine, I put the business into his hands. I told him to stop at the first good house 
which he thought would suit me, and he brought me to this door, where I have 
been ever since. Any one who thinks this is not equal to Elijah and his raven, 
and Daniel in the lion's den, does not know what it is for a lady, and a stranger, 
to live for a year in London, without any money to speak of, maintaining all the 
time the position of a lady, and a distinguished lady, too; and above all, such a 
one cannot be acquainted with the nature of cab-drivers and lodging-house 
keepers in general. 

V. A Noble Londoner. 

And in marked contrast with the treatment she received from 
her friends and relatives, who refused to give her money or encour- 
agement, is the course of this poor lodging-house keeper in London. 
His memory should be perpetuated for the honor of our common 
humanity. She continues in her letter: 

The one with whom I lodge has behaved to me like an absolute gentleman. 
No one could have shown more courtesy and delicacy. For six months at a time 
he has never sent me a bill; before this I had always paid him weekly, and I believe 
that is customary. When after waiting six months I sent him ten pounds, and he 
knew that it was all I had, he wrote a note to me, which I preserve as a curiosity, 
to say that he would entirely prefer that I should keep it. I have lived upon this 
man's confidence in me for a year, and this comparatively pleasant and comfortable 
home is one that I owe to the judgment and taste of a cab-driver. . . . Your ten 
pounds was brought me two or three hours after your letter came, and I sent 
it immediately to Mr. Walker, and now I am entirely relieved of that most painful 
feeling of the impropriety of depending upon him in this way, which it has re- 
quired all my faith and philosophy to endure, because he can now very well wait 
for the rest, and perceive that the postponement is not an indefinite one. Your 
letter has warmed my heart, and that was 'vhat had suffered most. I would have 
frozen into a Niobe before I would have asked any help for myself, and would sell 
gingerbread and apples at the corner of a street for the rest of my days before I 
could stoop, for myself, to such humiliations as I have borne in behalf of my work — 
and I knew that I had a right to demand aid for it. 

VI. Her Interview with Carlyle. 

In her first interview with Carlyle she told him of her great discovery in regard 



DELIA BACON. go 7 

to Shakespeare's Plays, so-called, and he appeared to be interested in her, if not 
in her hypothesis; but he treated that with respect, and advised her to put her 
thoughts on paper. She accordingly accepted an arrangement kindly made for her 
by Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson with the editors of a Boston magazine, worked very 
hard, and soon sent off eighty pages. A part of this was published, and she re- 
ceived eighteen pounds for it. Had this contract been carried out, the money 
made by it would have supported her comfortably in London, but there arose some 
misunderstanding between her and the editors, owing, perhaps, to her want ot 
method and ignorance of business. She considered herself very ill-used, and would 
have nothing more to do with them. 

VII. Her Samtv. 

We are struck here by the fact that while Thomas Carlyle and 
Ralph Waldo Emerson not only believed in the possibility of her 
theory being correct, and were ready to aid her to obtain a public 
hearing; and while she was living upon the bounty of poor Mr. 
Walker, and the contributions of Mrs. Farrar and other literary 
acquaintances, her own family and immediate friends seem to have 
abandoned her to starvation in London. It could not have been 
upon any question of her sanity, for the Putnam's Magazine article 
gives no indication of lunacy; it is an exceedingly lucid and able 
essay; and certainly Carlyle and Emerson were better fitted to judge 
of her mental condition than any coterie of the McWhorter stripe 
could possibly be; and those eminent men, it seems, believed her to 
be sane enough to be entitled to a full publication of her views. It 
may have been that the mere theory that Francis Bacon wrote the 
Shakespeare Plays was, in that day, regarded, by the average mind 
in New England, as sufficient proof of lunacy, without any other 
act or acts on the part of the unhappy individual who possessed it. 
And even Mr. Nathaniel Hawthorne — another distinguished 
writer of that day — held out his hand and helped her. His course 
throughout was courteous and generous, and should be remem- 
bered to his everlasting honor. 

VIII. The Publication of Her Book. 

Mrs. Farrar says : 

She now found an excellent and powerful friend in Mr. Hawthorne. He kindly 
undertook to make an agreement with a publisher, and promised her that her 



9o8 CONCL USIONS. 

book should be printed if she would write it. Deprived of her expected endow- 
ment from writing articles for a periodical, she was much distressed for want of 
funds, and suffered many privations during the time that she was writing her book. 
She lixed on the poorest food, and was often without the means of having a fire in 
her chamber. She told me that she lurote a great part of her large octavo volume 
sitti>ig up in lied to keep warm. 

There is scarcely a more tragical story in the u^hole history of 
literature. This noble, learned woman, with a mind that penetrated 
far beyond her contemporaries, suffering for want of food in Lon- 
don, and writing her great work wrapped in the bed-clothes, for 
lack of a fire in her chamber. 

Is it any wonder that her mind finally gave way? Where is 
the brain that could long stand such a strain? Poverty, hunger, 
cold, intense and long-continued mental labor, the estrangement 
from friends, the cruel indifference of relatives, the contempt of 
the world, the sneers of the shallow and the abuse of the base. 

And does any one believe she would have had to endure such 
sufferings if she had been writing a sentimental, shallow book to 
illustrate the heroic career and magnificent virtues of that illus- 
trious money-grabber of Stratford ? No. All New England would 
have come to her relief. She suffered because she proclaimed a 
belief that the ignorant age regarded as improbable. She was 
scourged into the mad-house by men who called themselves crit- 
ics. And to the honor of England be it remembered that when 
she was denied a hearing in America, and was abandoned by her 
own kith and kin, she found friends and a publisher in London. 

Mrs. Farrar continues: 

It was when her work was about half done that she wrote to me the letter from 
which I have made the foregoing e.xtract. Her life of privation and seclusion was 
very injurious to both body and mind. How great that seclusion was is seen in 
the following passage from another of her letters to me : 

I am glad to know that you are still alive and on this side of that wide sea 
which parts me from so many that were once so near, for I have lived here much 
like a departed spirit, looking back on the joys and sorrows of a world in which I 
have no longer any place. I have been more than a year in this house, and have 
had but three visitors in all that time, and paid but one visit myself, and that was 
to Carlyle, after he had taken the trouble to come all the way from Chelsea to 
invite me ; and though he has since written to invite me, I have not been able to 
accept his kindness. I have had calls from Mr. Grote and Mr. Monckton Milnes; 
and Mr. Buchanan came to see me, though I had not delivered my letter to him. 

All the fine spirits who knew Miss Bacon found in her what pleased and inter- 
ested them, and, had not that one engrossing idea possessed her, she might have 
had a brilliant career among the literarv societv of London. 



DELIA BACON. 909 

Yes; it was her dissent from the common opinion of mankind 
that ruined everything. 

One dark winter evening, after writing all day in her bed, she rose, threw on 
some ctothes,Tand walked out to take the air. Her lodgings were at the West End 
of London, near to Sussex Gardens, and not far from "where my mother lived. She 

needed my address, and suddenly resolved to go to the house of Mrs. R for it. 

She sent in her request, and while standing in the doorway she had a glimpse of 
the interior. It looked warm, cheerful and inviting, and she had a strong desire 
to see my mother; so she readily accepted an invitation to walk in, and found the 
old lady with her daughter and a friend just sitting down to tea. Happily, my 
sister remembered that a Miss Bacon had been favorably mentioned in my letters 
from Cambridge, so she had no hesitation in asking her to take tea with them. 
The stranger's dress was such an extraordinary deshabille that nothing but her 
lady-like manners and conversation could have convinced the family that she was 
the person she pretended to be. She told me how much ashamed she was of her 
appearance that evening; she had intended going only to the door, but could 
not resist the inclination to enter and sit down at that cheerful tea-table, which 
looked so like mine in Cambridge. 

IX. Her Journey to Stratford. 

Poor soul ! In rags and wretchedness she clung to the task 
which she believed God had assigned to her. 

The next summer I was living in London. The death of a dear friend had 
just occurred in my house; the relatives were collected there, and all were feeling 
very sad, when I v.as told by my servant that a lady wished to see me. I sent 
word that there was death in the house, and I could see no one that night. The 
servant returned, saying, " She will not go away, ma'am, and she will not give 
her name." 

On hearing this I went to the door, and there stood Delia Bacon, pale and 
sad. I took her in my arms and pressed her to my bosom; she gasped for breath 
and could not speak. We went into a vacant room and sat down together. She 
was faint, but recovered on drinking a glass of port wine, and then she told me 
that her book was finished and in the hands of Mr. Hawthorne, and now she was 
ready to go to Stratford-upon-Avon. There she expected to verify her hypothesis, 
by opening the tomb of Shakspere, where she felt sure of finding papers that 
would disclose the real authorship of the Plays. I tried in vain to dissuade her 
from this insane project; she was resolved, and only wished for my aid in winding 
up her affairs in London and setting her off for Stratford. This aid I gave with 
many a sad misgiving as to the result. She looked so ill when I took leave of her 
in the railroad carriage that I blamed myself for not having accompanied her to 
Stratford, and was only put at ease by a very cheerful letter from her, received a 
few days after her departure. 

On arriving at Stratford she was so exhausted that she could only creep up to 
bed at the inn, and when she inquired about lodgings it was doubtful to herself, 
and all who saw her, whether she would live to need any. One person expressed 
this to her, but her brave heart and strong will carried her out the next day m 
search of a home, and here as in London she fell into good hands. She entered a 
very pretty cottage, the door of which stood open, found no one in it, but sat down 



(jjQ CONCLUSIONS. 

and waited for some one to appear. Presently the woman entered, an elderly 
lady, living on her income, with only one servant. She had never taken any 
lodger, but she would not send Miss Bacon away, because she was a stranger and 
ill; and she remembered, she said, that Abraham had entertained angels unawares. 
So she made her lie down on her sofa, and covered her up, and went off to prepare 
some dinner for her. Miss Bacon says, in her letter to me: 

There I was, at the same hour when I left you, the day before, looking out 
upon the trees that skirt the Avon, and that church and spire only a few yards 
from me, but so weak that I did not expect ever to go there. I know that I have 
been very near death. If anything can restore me, it will be the motherly treat- 
ment I have here. 

These incidents cannot fail to exalt our ideas of tlie noble, gen- 
erous English character. Twice had this poor castaway found in 
total strangers the kindest and most hospitable treatment; twice 
had they opened their hearts and homes to one who seemed almost 
abandoned by the world. Mrs. Farrar continues: 

A few weeks after this I received a very cheerful letter from her on the subject 
of the publisher of her book. She writes : 

I want you to help me ; help me bear this new kind of burden which I am so 
little used to. The editor of Fraser s Magazine, Parker, the very best publisher in 
England, is going to publish my book immediately, in such haste that they cannot 
stay to send me the proofs. That was the piece of news which came with your 
letter. How I wished it had been yourself instead, that you might share it with me 
on the instant. It was a relief to me to be assured that your generous heart was so 
near to be gladdened with it. Patience has had its perfect work. For the sake of 
those who have loved and trusted»me, for the sake of those who have borne my 
burden with me, how 1 rejoice ! 

Mr. Bennock writes to me for the title, and says this has been suggested, 
"The Shakespeare Problem Solved by Delia Bacon;'' but I am afraid that the 
name sounds too boastful. I have thought of suggesting "The Shakespeare 
Problem, by Delia Bacon, " leaving the reader to infer the rest. I have also 
thought of calling it "The Baconian Philosophy in Prose and Verse, by Delia 
Bacon; " or the " Fables of the Baconian Philosophy." But the publishers are the 
best judges of such things. 

That the book should be published under such agreeable auspices was the 
crowning blessing of her arduous labors, and it is a comfort to her friends that this 
gleam of sunshine illumined her path before the clouds settled down more darkly 
than ever on her fine mind. 

She remained for several months in Stratford, but I believe she never attempted 
to open the tomb of Shakspere; and when she left that place, she returned home 
to die in the bosom of her family. Thus ends the history of a highly gifted and 
noble-minded woman. 

Thus ends Mrs. Farrar's melancholy storv — the story of a life 
which was sacrificed for an idea as trul}' as ever were the mar- 
tyrs of old who suffered in flame for their religious convictions. 
For what death at the stake, with its few moments of agony, can be 
compared with those long years of hardship, want, hunger, cold, 
neglect and obloquy? 



DELIA BACON. <) i i 

It has been the habit to speak of her book as an insane produc- 
tion. Doubtless the shadow of the coming mental aberration may 
hang over parts of it, and obscure the style, but there is a great 
deal in it that is clear, cogent and forceful. As it may interest 
the reader who cannot readily procure a copy of the original work, 
I copy a few extracts. The work is called The Philosophy of the 
Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded: 

X. The Art of the Play-writer. 

Certainly, at the time when it was written, it was not the kind of learning and 
the kind of philosophy that the world was used to. Nobody had ever heard of 
such a thing. The memory of man could not go far enough to produce any 
parallel to it in letters. It was manifest that this was nature, the living nature, 
the thing itself. None could perceive the tint of the school on its robust creations; 
no eye could detect in its sturdy compositions the stuff that books were made of; 
and it required no effort of faith, therefore, to believe that it was not that. It was 
enough to believe, and men were glad, on the whole, to believe that it was not 
that — that it was not learniug or philosophy — but something just as far from that, 
as completely its opposite, as could well be conceived of. 

How could men suspect, as yet, that this was the new scholasticism, the New 
Philosophy? Was it strange that they should mistake it for rude nature herself, 
in her unschooled, spontaneous strength, when it had not yet pubJicly transpired 
that something had come at iast upon the stage of human development, which was 
stooping to nature and learning of her, and stealing her secret, and unwinding the 
clue to the heart of her mystery? 

How could men know that this was the subtlest philosophy, the ripest scho- 
lasticism, the last proof of all human learning, when it was still a secret that the 
school of nature and her laws, that the school of natural history and natural 
philosophy, too, through all its lengths and breadths and depths, was open; and 
that "the schools" — the schools of old chimeras and notions — the schools where 
the jangle of the monkish abstractions and the "fifes and the trumpets of the 
Greeks " were sounding — were going to get shut up with it. 

How should they know that the teacher of the New Philosophy was Poet also — 
must be, by that same anointing, a singer, mighty as th? sons of song who brought 
their harmonies of old into the savage earth — a singer able to sing down antiqui- 
ties with his new gift, able to sing in new eras ? 

But these have no clue as yet to track him with; they cannot collect or thread 
his thick-showered meanings. He does not care through how many mouths he 
draws the lines of his philosophic purpose. _ He does not care from what long dis- 
tances his meanings look toward each other. But these interpreters are not aware 
of that. They have not been informed of that particular. On the contrary, they 
have been put wholly off their guard. Their heads have been turned, deliberately, 
in just the opposite direction. They have no faintest hint beforehand of the depths 
in which the philosophic unities of the piece are hidden: it is not strange, therefore, 
that these unities should have escaped their notice, and that they should take it for 
granted that there were none in it. It is not the mere play-reader who is ever going 
to see them. It will lake the philosophic student, with all his clues, to master 



g J -, CONCL USIONS. 

them. It will take the student of the New School and the New Ages, with the torch 
of Natural Science in his hand, to track them to their center. 

XL The Age of Elizabeth. 

We all know what age in the history of the immemorial liberties and dignities 
of a race — what age in the history of its recovered liberties, rescued from oppres- 
sion and recognized and confirmed by statute, this was. We know it was an age 
in which the decisions of the Bench were prescribed to it by a power that had " the 
laws of England at its commandment," that it was an age in which Parliament, and 
the press, and the pulpit, were gagged, and in which that same justice had charge, 
diligent charge " of amusements also, and of those who only played at working." 
That this was a time when the play-house itself, — in that same year, too, in which 
these philosophical plays began first to attract attention, and again and again, — was 
warned off by express ordinances from the whole ground of " the forbidden ques- 
tions." . . . 

To the genius of a race in whose nature development, speculation and action 
were for the first time systematically united, in the intensities of that great histori- 
cal impersonation which signalizes its first entrance upon the stage of human 
affairs, stimulated into premature activity by that very opposition which would have 
shut it out from its legitimate fields, and shut it up within those impossible, insuf- 
ferable limits that the will of the one man prescribed to it then, — to that many- 
sided genius, bent on playing well its part even under these conditions, all the 
more determined on it by that very opposition — kept in mind of its manliness all 
he time by that all-comprehending prohibition on manhood, that took charge of 
every act — irritated all the time into a protesting human dignity by the perpetual 
meannesses prescribed to it, instructed in the doctrine of human nature and its 
nobility in the school of that sovereignty which was keeping such a costly crib here 
then ; " Let a beast be lord of beasts," says Hamlet, " and your crib shall stand at 
the king's mess; " " Would you have me false to my naiiire ?" says another, " rather 
say \ play the ?7ian I am;" to that so conscious man, playing his part under these 
hard conditions, on a stage so high; knowing all the time what theater that was he 
played it in, how " far" those long-drawn aisles extended; what " far-off" crowd- 
ing ages filled them, watching his slightest movements; who knew that he was act- 
ing " even in the eyes of all posterity that wear this world out to the ending doom: " 
to such a one studying out his part beforehand, under such conditions, it was not 
one disguise only, it was not one secret literary instrumentality only, that sufficed 
for the plot of it. That toy stage which he seized and converted so effectually to his 
ends, with all its masks did not suffice for the exigencies of this speaker's speech, 
" who came prepared to speak well" and " to give to his speech a grace by action."' 

XII. Miss Bacon's Persecutors. 

I take pleasure in giving the following very interesting letter 
from William D. O'Connor. I need not say that Miss Elizabeth P. 
Peabody, of Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts, referred to in it, is well 
and honorably known as the friend of Emerson and Hawthorne 

' Delia Bacon, The Philosophy of the Plays o/ Shakespeare Uii/olifed, pp. 285-7. 



DELIA BACON. 



913 



and all the really great men of New England. Always a woman of 
remarkable mental powers, she has attained a vast age with un- 
clouded intellect. 

Washington, D. C, Life-Saving Service. October 20, 1887. 
Mv Dear Friend: 

I have your note about the suppression of Miss Bacon's MS. I had the stor> 
from Miss Peabody more than twenty-five years ago, and lately again, when I sa- 
her at Jamaica Plains. 

Her second version differs from the first only in this: — She now does not 
think it was a life of Raleigh; but she told me it was when I first talked with her: 
and her memory was nearer the event; and I am sure that the extracts from the 
" Life of Raleigh," which you will see in the early part of Miss Bacon's book, are 
her attempt to recall from memory some fragments of the lost MS., which, I re- 
member Miss Peabody told me long ago, had cost twelve years' labor, and the loss 
of which was a staggering blow to its author. 

The tale ran thus: Emerson was powerfully impressed with Miss Bacon's 
theory, and stood her friend in it from first to last. He was instrumental in send- 
ing her to England, to prosecute her studies on the subject there; and gave her 
letters of introduction to many people, and got her material aid. Before sailing, it 
was arranged that the continuation to the Putnam s Magazine article in 1856 
should appear in the same magazine, and she went off flushed with hope and con- 
fidence. 

Now came the beginning of disaster. Richard Grant White and some other 
Shaksperioloters tore down to Putnam's; howled over the profanation like 
cayotes, and finally scared him into discontinuing the publication. 

Then Emerson had to write to Miss Bacon that her MS. was rejected, and 
she in turn wrote back to have it sent to her in England for publication there, prob- 
ably in her book, which she was then projecting. 

The MS. (which I believe to have been a Life of Raleigh and a sort of a key to 
the theory, dwelling, as I have been told it did, on the nature of Raleigh's School), 
was sent to one of Emerson's brothers, William Emerson, at New York, for safe 
keeping. In some way, and for some reason, which I cannot gather, it was passed 
over to the care of Miss P R , at Staten Island. 

When Miss Bacon's request to have the MS. sent to her in England was 

received. Miss R was asked to have it brought over to New York to William 

Emerson. 

The story goes that she got into a close carriage with the package, at her resi- 
dence on Staten Island, with the intention of driving to the ferry, crossing over to 
New York, and delivering it in person to William Emerson. It was in the dark 
twilight of an autumn evening, the roads were miry and full of hollows, and the 
carriage swayed and joggled as it rolled. In one of these vehicular convulsions, 

the package rolled from Miss R 's lap into the straw-covered bottom of the 

carriage. Miss R put her hand down in search of it, and, not coming upon 

it, reflected that it was perfectly safe in the close interior, and would be better found 
when the carriage arrived at the ferry, where its motions would cease, and light 
would aid in the search. Presently the terminus was reached, but the MS. could 
not be found, though a rigorous investigation was made. I was told that it was 
advertised for, but nothing was ever heard of it. 

Was ever any occurrence more unexplainable, or more sinister ? I Uo not like 



914 



CONCL USIONS. 



to suspect Miss R of complicity with any foul play, for I have always heard 

that she was a high-minded lady; but how can this loss be explained under the cir- 
cumstances ? When you bring to mind the nature of a coach interior, you will see 
that the MS. could not be bounced out or jolted out by any possibility. It is an 
utter mystery. 

However, the MS. was lost, and it is said that Miss Bacon went wild when she 
got the next letter from Emerson, telling her the bad news. 

Whatever may be the explanation of this incident, I think there 
can be little doubt that Delia Bacon was persecuted by the Grant 
Whites of that era, denied a hearing in her own country, and driven 
to a foreign land to find a publisher. The treatment of the poor 
woman from first to last was simply shameful. She was persecuted 
into the mad-house and the grave by men who called themselves 
scholars and gentlemen. Their asinine hoofs beat upon the great 
sensitive brain of the shrinking woman, and every blow was an- 
swered by a shriek. And when, at last, they had, by their on- 
slaughts, destroyed her intellect, the braying crew wagged their 
prodigious ears, and in stentorian chorus clamored that her insan- 
ity was indubitable proof of the falsehood of her theory, and of the 
wisdom which lay concealed in their admirable and learned hoofs. 

XIII. Delia Bacon's Portrait. 

It is with deep regret that I find myself unable to fulfill the 
promises made by my publishers, in their advertisements, to give 
the public in this work, a copy of Delia Bacon's portrait. They 
applied some months since to her nephew, the Rev. Leonard W. 
Bacon, of Savannah, Georgia, and he referred them to his brother, 
Theodore Bacon, a lawyer, in Rochester, N. Y. He replied that 
he possessed a picture of Delia Bacon, an old daguerreotype, but 
that the dress was peculiar and not fitted for publication. My 
publishers then offered to send an artist to Rochester to copy the 
features, and that they would give in the book simply an engraving 
of the face and head. A representative of the firm even went to 
Rochester, in connection with the matter, but failed to find Mr. 
Bacon. After considerable correspondence a family council was at 
last held upon this grave subject, and "the family" refused to fur- 
nish my publishers with a copy of the picture, or permit them to 
copy it themselves. 



DELIA BACON. pi^ 

It is difficult to account for such action. I know of no pre- 
cedent for it. The world is entitled to look upon the features of 
its illustrious characters; and I cannot understand how any 
•"family " has a right to monopolize them. Suppose there was but 
one picture of Francis Bacon in the world, and that was in the 
hands of the family of one of his nephews, and they refused to 
permit the world to look at it ! In this case the sun painted the 
picture, and it would seem especially to belong to mankind. But 
poor Delia's il'l fate pursues her even beyond the grave: — she was 
suppressed, by her family, living, and she is suppressed by them 
•dead. 

If the authors of books had been clamoring, for years past, for 
Delia Bacon's picture, the case might be different; but this is the 
first work ever published which seeks to defend the poor, misused 
woman, and to honor her by giving her features to the world, — and 
it is refused permission to do so ! If the picture itself was utterly 
unfit to be seen by human eyes, it might be different; but I am told 
that copies are being circulated in private hands. 

It is to be regretted that some of the tender solicitude now 

shown toward the picture of Delia Bacon, by her family, was not 

manifested for the poor woman herself when she was starving and 

shivering and living on the charity of strangers in London. But, 

Seven cities claimed immortal Homer dead, 
Through which the living Homer begged for bread. 

I am shocked to hear, since writing the above, that there is rea- 
son to believe that " the family " refuse to permit Delia Bacon's por- 
trait to appear in this book because they do not ivaiit her idetitified 
■ivith the theory that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare Plays! 

Alas ! and alas ! As if Delia Bacon had any other claim upon 
immortality than the fact that she originated that very theory! 
And as if there was any chance of any of her ''family" escaping 
utter oblivion, in a generation or two, except by their connection 
with her, and through her with that very theory. It is incompre- 
hensible. 



CHAPTER II. 

WILLIAM HENRY SMITH. 

Here's Nestor, — 
Instructed by the antiquary times, 
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise. 

Troilus and Cressida, it, j. 

WE turn to the Nestor of the Baconian question — the distin- 
guished William Henry Smith, who will always be remem- 
bered as the first of Francis Bacon's countrymen who saw through 
the Shakespearean myth, and announced the real authorship of the 
Plays. 

It is a gratification to know that this distinguished gentleman is 
still alive, in hale old age, to witness the overthrow of the delusiort 
which he challenged in 1856. His portrait, which we here present,, 
represents a jovial, clear-headed, kindly-hearted man. 

I. Mr. Smith Described. 

A Baconian correspondent, writing to Shake spcariana, de- 
scribes Mr. Smith as follows: 

He is an old gentleman, seventy-five or seventy-six years of age, I think, with 
the brightest of eyes and the most energetic, kind manner that you can imagine. 
His interest in the Baconian subject is still so great that he can hardly allow him- 
self to speak upon it, it excites him too much; and on this account he has never 
attended any of our meetings, although he comes here after them to hear the news. 
He considers that we have got quite past him, and he will never again be dragged 
into controversy. But no one is better up than he is, both in Bacon and 
Shakespeare. As a young man his education seems to have been peculiar. He 
was thrown very much upon himself and upon a few books, which he has evident- 
ly read until he has them at his fingers' ends. A few choice classics, Burton's. 
Anatomy of Melancholy and The Pilgrim s Progress for his theology; Bacon for his 
solid reading, Shakespeare for his lighter studies. It was the persistent reading of 
these two groups of works which brought him to perceive the identity of their tone, 
their field of knowledge, and finally of their author. He had no preconceived ideas, 
but the conviction grew upon him. He belonged to a young men's debating- 

916 



; VILLI A M HEME Y SMI TH. 9 1 ^ 

club. One day, a subject for debate being lacking, he proposed that it should be 
debated whether Bacon or Shakespeare had the better claim to the authorship of 
the Plays. The subject was considered, at first, too monstrous to be discussed; 
but John Stuart Mill, being one of the members, spoke strongly in favor of giving 
Mr. Smith a hearing. A paper was accordingly read, and produced such a sensa- 
tion that Mr. Smith was requested to print it in the form of a letter to Lord Elles- 
mere, the then head of the Shakespearean Society. Of course it was virulently 
assailed by the Shakspereans, who t^ied by caricature and ridicule to annihilate 
Mr. Smith and his notions. He then wrote a fuller statement and published it in a 
little two-shilling-sixpence volume, and having done this he retired from the 
scene. He did not care, he said, to have literary mud cast at him; the truth would 
come out some day. Great domestic troubles overtook him, and for a while he 
lost interest in everything, even in the fate of his book, living a very recluse life, 
sometimes in London, but more often in a little country estate in Sussex. He is a 
highly entertaining old gentleman, always ready with his joke and his apt quota- 
tion, and with a laugh of infectious jollity. He had, he says, no desire to live, but 
now he certainly would like to abide the publication of Mr. Donnelly's book, and 
see how the learned Shakspereans are going to wriggle out of their very decided 
statements. 

II. The Charge of Plagiarism. 

Mr. W. H, Wyman, in his Bacou-Shakespeare Bibliography, has the 
following remarks: 

A question of precedence as to the Baconian advocacy arose between Mr.. 
Smith and Miss Bacon's friends. Hawthorne, in his preface to Miss Bacon's book,, 
animadverted upon Mr. Smith for " taking to himself this lady's theory, " result- 
ing in the correspondence published in Smith's book. In his letter Mr. Smithi 
claimed that he had never seen Miss Baron's Pnlttam' s Alontlily article until after 
his pamphlet was published, and also that he had held these opinions for twenty 
years previously. But as Miss Bacon's article was published eight months pre- 
vious to his pamphlet, and reviewed in the AthciKTttm in the meantime, his want 
of knowledge was certainly very singular, and the precedence must be awarded to 
her. 

It seems to me that any one who reads this famous pamphlet of 
1856 will come to the conclusion that these animadversions are not 
just. There is no resemblance in the mode of thought between. 
Miss Bacon's argument and that of Mr. Smith. Miss Bacon dealt 
in the large, general, comprehensive propositions involved in the 
question; Mr. Smith's essay is sharp, keen and bristling with 
points. Both show wonderful penetration, but it is of a different 
kind. Miss Bacon's is the penetration of a philosopher; Mr. Smith's 
that of a lawyer, 

Neither should it be a matter of surprise that two different 
minds should arrive at the same conclusions, at the same time, on 



9 1 8 CONCL USIONS. 

this question: the only wonder is that the whole world did not 
reach the same views simultaneously with them. 

III. Mr. Hawthorne's Charge. 

Concerning this question of originality in tiie discussion of the 

question, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his Preface to Miss Bacon's 

book, had this to say: 

Another evil followed. An English writer, (in a " Letter to the Earl of Elles- 
mere," published within a few months past), has thought it not inconsistent with the 
fair play on which his country prides itself, to take to himself this lady's theory, 
and favor the public with it as his own original conception, without allusion to 
the author's prior claim. In reference to this pamphlet, she (Miss Bacon) gener- 
ously says: 

This has not been a selfish enterprise. It is not a personal concern. It is a 
discovery which belongs not to an individual, and not to a people. Its fields are 
wide enough and rich enough for us all; and he that has no work, and whoso will, 
let him come and labor in them. The field is the world's; and the world's work 
henceforth is in it. So that it be known in its real comprehension, in its true rela- 
tions to the weal of the world, what matter is it? So that the truth, which is 
dearer than all the rest — which abides with us when all others leave us, dearest 
then — so that the truth, which is neither yours nor mine, but yours ()■;/</ mine, be 
known, loved, honored, emancipated, mitered, crowned, adorned — ''who loses any- 
thing, that does not find it?" And what matters it? says the philosophic wisdom, 
speaking in the abstract, what name it is proclaimed in, and what letters of the 
alphabet we know it by? — What matter is it, so that they spell the name that is 
good for all, and good for each ? — for that is the rral name here? 

Speaking on the author's behalf, however, I am not entitled to imitate her 
magnanimity; and, therefore, hope that the writer of the pamphlet will disclaim 
any purpose of assuming to himself, on the ground of a slight and superficial per- 
formance, the results which she has attained at the cost of many toils and sacrifices. 

IV. Mr. Smith E.xonerated by Mr. Hawthorne. 

In 1857 Mr. Smith published his book: Bacon and Shake- 
speare: An Inquiry touching Players, Play-houses atid Play-writers in 
the days of Elizabeth. By William Henry Smith. London: John 
Russell Smith, 36 Soho Square; and he prefaced it with copies of 
a correspondence between Mr. Hawthorne and himself. In this 
correspondence Mr. Smith assured Mr. Hawthorne: 

I had never heard the name of Miss Bacon until it was mentioned in the re- 
view of my pamphlet in the Literary Gazette, September, 1856. . . . If it were 
necessary I could show that for upwards of twenty years I have had the opinion 
that Bacon was the author of the Shakespeare Plays. 

To which Mr. Hawthorne replies, June 5, 1887 as follows: 

I beg leave to say that I entirely accept your statement as to the originality and 
early date of your own convictions regarding the authorship of the Shakespeare 



WILLIAM HENRY SMITH. pip 

Plays, and likewise as to your ignorance of Miss Bacon's prior publication on the 
subject. Of course my imputation of unfairness or discourtesy on your part falls 
at once to the ground, and I regret that it was ever made. 

My mistake was perhaps a natural one, although, unquestionably, the treat- 
ment of the mbject in your ''Letter to the Earl of Ellesmere" differs widely from that 
adopted by Miss Bacon. ... I now see that my remarks did you great in- 
justice, and I trust that you will receive this acknowledgment as the only repara- 
tion in my power. 

V. The Conversion of Lord Palmerston. 

One of the first and greatest converts to the Baconian theory 
was made by Mr. Smith's book, namely, the famous Premier of 
England, Lord Palmerston. Mr. Wyman quotes the following 
from an article in Frascr's Mcr^t^-az/t/c for November, 1865: 

Literature was the fashion of Lord Palmerston's early days, when, (as Syd- 
ney Smith remarked), a false quantity in a man was pretty nearly the same as a 
faux pas in a woman. He was tolerably well up in the chief Latin and English 
classics; but he entertained one of the most extraordinary paradoxes, touching the 
greatest of them, that was ever broached by a man of his intellectual caliber. He 
maintained that the Plays of Shakespeare were really written by Bacon, who passed 
them off under the name of an actor, for fear of compromising his professional 
prospects and philosophic gravity. Only last year, when this subject was dis- 
cussed at Broadlands, Lord Palmerston suddenly left the room, and speedily 
returned with a small volume of dramatic criticisms, in which the same theory 
(originally started by an American lady) was supported by supposed analogies of 
thought and expression. " There," he said, " read that, and you will come to my 
opinion." When the positive testimony of Ben Jonson, in the verses prefi.xed to 
the edition of 1623, was adduced, he remarked, " Oh, these fellows always stand up 
for one another, or he may have been deceived like the rest." The argument had 
struck Lord Palmerston by its originality, and he wanted leisure for a searching 
exposure of its groundlessness. 

The volume alluded to was Smith's Bacon and Shakespeare^ 

The truth was that the comprehensive mind of the great states- 
man, who had ruled the British Empire for so many years, needed 
but a statement of the outlines of the argument to leap at once to 
the conclusion that there was no coherence between the life of the 
man of Stratford and the mighty works which go by his name. 

In America we have a gentleman who, for breadth of mind, 
knowledge of affairs, keenness of observation and depth of penetra- 
tion, deserves to be named in the same breath with Lord Palmer- 
ston. I refer to the celebrated Benjamin F. Butler, whose genius 
has adorned alike the walks of peace and the fields of war. General 

^ Bacon-Shakcspearc Bibliog., p. 26. 



9 2 o CONCL USIONS. 

Butler, like Lord Palmerston, needed but the presentation of 
the argument to reach the conclusion that Francis Bacon wrote the 
Plays; and that opinion he has maintained inflexibly during a 
period of thirty years. 

When such large and trained intelligences accept the theory of 
the Baconian authorship, as not only reasonable, but conclusive, it 
is amusing to see small creatures, who have never been known out- 
side of their own bailiwicks, protesting, with their noses high in 
the air, that the theory is utterly absurd and ridiculous; and that it 
is an insult to their brain-pans to be even asked to consider it. 

VI. A Wonderful Fact Brought Out. 

Mr. Smith's book, already referred to, is a very able and 
original performance. It contained, for the first time, many of the 
arguments that have since been used by all the writers on the sub- 
ject. It is evident that his observation is very keen. I find, for 
instance, this paragraph, which has a curious bearing on the Cipher 
in the Plays: 

We may here mention a fact which we have remarked, and have not seen 
noted by any commentator — that every page in each of the three first folio edi- 
tions contains exactly the same amount of matter: — the same word which begins or 
ends the page in the 162J edition, begins and ends the page in the i6j2 and 1664 edi- 
tions; proving that they were printed from one another, if not from the same 
types. The 1685 edition is altogether different. 

This is a very remarkable fact. The curious paging of the 1623 
edition must have been precisely followed in the edition printed 
nine years later, and again in the edition printed forty-one years 
later. Now, there were no stereotype or electrotype plates in those 
days; and the type could not have been kept standing for forty-one 
years. There are but two explanations: The first is, that some per- 
son of means, we will say the author of the Plays, solicitous to 
secure the perpetuation of the Folio from the waste and ravages 
of "devouring time," had had printed in 1623 other editions, dated, 
on the title-pages, 1632 and 1664, and left them to be brought out 
by friends at those dates. The second explanation is that some 
man or men had been left behind, — some friends of Bacon, — or 
some secret society, if you please, like the Rosicrucians, — who, 
knowing that there was a cipher in the Plays, and that it depended 




/k£cf.ot„AA^ y^^t^ i/^^u. /{Ptpj 



^aj. 




WILLIAM HENRY SMITH. 9-r 

on the arrangement of the matter on the pages of that first Folio of 

1623, took pains to see that the printers, in reprinting the Plays, 

■copied the exact arrangement of the text found in that Folio of 1623. 

It is not within the human possibilities that any printer, unless 

peremptorily instructed so to do, would or could repeat the 

arrangement of the matter found in the first Folio: — with three 

hundred words in one column and six hundred in another; with 

the stage directions, as I have shown, in one case taking up two or 

three inches of space, and in another crowded into the corner of a 

■speech of one of the characters. 

And on either supposition — that all the editions were really 
printed in 1623, from the same type; or that the printing of the edi- 
tions of 1632 and 1664 was supervised and directed by some intel- 
ligent person with a purpose; — on either supposition, I say, it shows 
there was some mystery about that first Folio. Surely Heminge 
and Condell would not print copies of the Folio in 1623 to be put 
forth forty-one years thereafter; and surely no person in 1632 or 
1664 would insist on repeating the exact arrangement of type in 
the edition of 1623, if he did not know that there was something 
of importance attached to and depending on that arrangement. 

But, after the edition of 1664, that directing intelligence had 
passed away, and the Plays were left to take their natural course; 
and hence the folio edition of 1685 departed altogether from the 
-standard set by the 1623 Folio; and ever after, until we reach the 
modern era of facsimiles, the arrangement of every edition as to 
paging, etc, has been utterly unlike that of the first Folio. 

Francis Bacon was determined that his name and writings should 
not perish from the face of the earth; hence in his will he left espe- 
cial directions that copies of his philosophical works should be pre- 
sented to all the great libraries then in existence; and with the same 
profound prevision he may have arranged with Sir Thomas Mentis, 
Harry Percy, Sir Tobie Matthew and other friends, who were doubt- 
less in the secret of the Cipher, that editions should be put forth 
after his death, with the same arrangement of the text, on which 
the Cipher depended, so as to increase the chances of the work con- 
tinuing to exist and of the Cipher being found out. 



92 2 CONCLUSIONS. 

VII. In Conclusion. 

But it must be a source of gratification to the countrymen of 
Francis Bacon, if the wreath of immortal glory is to be taken from 
the head of Shakspere and placed on the brow of another, that 
there was one Englishman with sagacity enough to look through 
the illusions so cunningly constructed around the subject, and per- 
ceive the hidden truth, as early as any other; and that for the 
first steps of this great revelation they are not altogether indebted 
to foreigners. It must be the hope of all men that this patriarch 
may long live, in hale old age, to enjoy the honors justly belong- 
ing to him. 

It was my intention to have given, in this work. Miss Bacon's 
famous Putnam's Magazine article in full and also Mr. Smith's orig- 
inal letter to the Earl of Ellesmere, but I find my book already too 
large, and I am reluctantly constrained to omit them. I would say 
in conclusion that I possess copies of the original essays, and I con- 
sider them worth a good deal more than their weight in gold. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BACONIANS. 

I count myself in nothing else so happy 
As in a soul remembering my good friends; 
And as my fortune ripens with my love 
It shall be still my true love's recompense. 

Richard /I., //, j. 

I AM sure that if the spirit of Francis Bacon could stand at my 
side and speak, it would say: 

"In the day of my rehabilitation let not those who have main- 
tained my cause be forgotten; do you justice to the clear heads and 
kind hearts that have labored to bring me to the possession of my 
own. They have endured abuse and mockery for my sake: let 
them be set right in the eyes of mankind." 

In this spirit I have given the two preceding chapters; in this 
spirit I shall briefly refer to a few of the leading advocates of the 
theory that Francis Bacon wrote the Plays. 

I. William D. O'Connor. 

The first book ever published, subsequent to the utterances of 
Delia Bacon and William Henry Smith, in which the Baconian the- 
ory was advocated, was a work published in i860, entitled Har- 
rifigtofi: A Stoty of True Love. By William D. O'Connor. Boston: 
Thayer and Eldridge. i2mo, pp. 558. 

I quote from Mr. Wyman's Bibliography'' the. following extracts, 
descriptive of this book: 

Hawthorne, in his Recollections of a Gifted Woman (title 27), says of Miss 

Bacon's book: 

I believe it has been the fate of this remarkable book never to have had more 
than a single reader. But since my return to America, a young man of genius and 

^ Bacon-Sliakespeare Bibliog., p. 23. 

9-'3 



924 CONCL USIONS. 

enthusiasm has assured me that he has positively read the book from beginning to 
■end, and is completely a convert to its doctrines. 

It belongs to him, therefore, and not to me — whom, in almost the last letter 
that I received from her, she declared unworthy to meddle with her work — it be- 
longs surely to this one individual, who has done her so much justice as to know 
what she wrote, to place Miss Bacon in her due position before the public and pos- 
terity. 

The "young man " referred to (in 1863) is the author of this novel. The story 
itself is of the times of the Fugitive Slave Law. Mr. O'Connor introduces his own 
Baconian theories through the dialogue of his title-hero, Harrington. 

He also renders an acknowledgment to Miss Bacon as their source, in a note 
at the end of the book: 

The reader of the twelfth chapter of this book may already have observed 
that Harrington, if he had lived, would have been a believer in the theory regard- 
ing the origin and purpose of the Shakespearean drama, as developed in the admir- 
able work by Miss Delia Bacon, entitled, The PJiilosophy of Shakespeare s Plays Un- 
folded, in which belief I should certainly agree with Harrington. 

I wish it were in my power to do even the smallest justice to that mighty and 
eloquent volume, whose masterly comprehension and insight, though they could 
not save it from being trampled upon by the brutal bison of the English press, yet 
lift it to the dignity, whatever may be its faults, of being the best work ever com- 
posed upon the Baconian or Shakespearean writings. It has been scouted by the 
■critics as the product of a distempered ideal. Perhaps it is. 

" But there is a prudent wisdom," says Goethe, " and there is a wisdom that 
does not remind us of prudence;" and, in like manner, I may say that there is a 
sane sense, and there is a sense that does not remind us of sanity. At all events, 
I am assured that the candid and ingenuous reader Miss Bacon wishes for, will 
find it more to his profit to be insane with her, on the subject of Shakespeare, than 
sane with Dr. Johnson. 

A personal friend of Mr. O'Connor has, at my request, written 
for me the following interesting account of his life: 

William Douglas O'Connor has long been known as one of the most ear- 
nest and determined of the Baconians. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 
in 1833. His earliest aspiration was to be an artist, and several years of his youth 
were devoted to the life of the studio. Finding, at length, his projected art career 
impracticable, he applied himself to business occupations for a living, keeping an 
eye meanwhile on literature as a possible profession, and maintaining the habit of 
an omnivorous reader. His early days witnessed the memorable deepening of the 
anti-slavery struggle, and he was one of many who threw themselves into the gal- 
lant movement of resistance to the Slave Power, which then shook the Northern 
centers, and had a notable arena in his native city. In 1851 he became associate 
editor of the Free Soil newspaper in Boston, The Cotnmomvealth, and took an 
active personal part in the stirring scenes of the place and period, such as the ren- 
dition of Burns. The eiventual suspension of The Commomvealth caused his mi- 
gration to Philadelphia, where from 1854 to i860 he was connected editorially with 
a weekly journal of large circulation, The Saturday Ez'eniug Post. In 1861 he 
became Corresponding Clerk of the Lighthouse Board at Washington, of which in 
1873 he became Chief Clerk. He resigned in 1874 and became Librarian of the 
Treasury. A year later he entered the Life-Saving Service, then extremely con- 
tracted in its functions, and an appendage of the Bureau of Revenue Marine. 
Under the able management of Mr. Sumner J. Kimball, it gradually expanded, 
until in 187S it was formally organized by law as a separate establishment, thus 
entering upon the career of splendid usefulness which is known to the whole 
country; and Mr. O'Connor was promoted to the responsible position of its Assist- 



THE BACONIANS. 925 

ant Chief, which he has since continued to occupy with distinction. The elaborate 
liistorical and descriptive articles on the Service in Appleton's and Johnson's 
•Cyclopedias are from his hand. 

It is known to his friends that the extent and arduousness of his ofiicial occu- 
pations have prevented him from doing the work in the field of literature of which 
he is widely thought capable, although it is understood that his preparations toward 
"this end have been considerable. For several years following 1856 he published a 
number of tales, which were popular at the time, such as The Sword of Manley, 
What Cheer, The Carpenter, etc., and also several poems, among which To Athos, 
Restirge'mus , To Fanny, etc., are still sometimes remembered. In i860 he pub- 
lished Harrington, an anti-slavery romance, characterized by great picturesqueness 
-and fervor, the scene of which was laid in Boston, in the Fugitive Slave Law kid- 
napping days. In 1866 the illustrious poet Walt Whitman, having been ignomini- 
■ously ejected by the then Secretary, the Hon. James Harlan, from a position in 
the Interior Department, on account of his book, published ten years before, Mr. 
O'Connor came out in an impassioned pamphlet entitled The Good Gray Poet, not- 
able for its range of literary learning and its eloquence, and chastised the outrage 
with a cogency and vigor which turned the tide in the venerable poet's favor, and 
started the strong movement in his behalf which has continued to this day both in 
Europe and this country. It was this pamphlet that the Hon. Henry J. Raymond 
"termed editorially, in the New York Times, " the most brilliant monograph in Ameri- 
»can literature." In 1867 one of Mr. O'Connor's early magazine tales, The Ghost, 
was published in book form in New York, with illustrations by Nast; and the story 
was afterwards reproduced in the Little Classic series. In 1883 Dr. R. M. Bucke, 
•of Ontario, Canada, put forth an admirable memoir of Walt Whitman, in which 
he published The Good Gray Poet, and to preface this Mr. O'Connor contributed a 
long introduction, mainly tributary to the old bard, and armed, like a scythed 
•chariot, with a flashing plenitude of excoriation for his detractors and defamers. 
In 1882-3 the Massachusetts District Attorney for Suffolk County, Oliver Stevens, 
-aided by the Massachusetts Attorney-General, John Marston, the notorious An- 
thony Comstock being also darkly apparent in the transaction, made an attempt to 
legally crush by prosecution Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a new edition of 
"which had just been published by Osgood & Co. of Boston ; and on this occasion 
Mr. O'Connor won signal distinction by several rousing letters in the New York 
Tribune, so effective in their fulminations that they alarmed the assailants, and 
broke the hostile movement down. In 1886, he published Ha/nlet's Note-Book, a 
work which completely vindicated from the aspersions of Richard Grant White 
the powerful and valid presentment of the Baconian case made by Mrs. Constance 
M. Pott in her edition of Lord Bacon's Promtis. Besides the special vindication, 
the work has many points of value to the student of the Bacon-Shakspere con- 
troversy, chief among which is the striking contrast instituted between the respec- 
tive characters and lives of the two men — a contrast which tells heavily against 
Shakspere. It is a tribute to the force of the book, that, despite the prevalent 
Shakspere bias, it was received with general commendation. 

Mr. O'Connor is entitled to rank with the original Baconians. He gave his 
ardent adhesion to Miss Delia Bacon's general theory immediately after the publi- 
cation of her first paper in Putnam's Magazine in 1856, and in several journals of 
that period he repeatedly championed her cause in uncompromising letters and 
editorials. 

... In the printed letter prefacing The Good Gray Poet, in Dr. Bucke's mem- 
oir of Walt Whitman, he has several weighty pages on Lord Bacon, as the author 



926 CONCL USIONS. 

of the Shakespeare drama. His special plea in Hamlet's A^ote-Book has already- 
been referred to. He has considerable celebrity in certain private circles for his 
powers in conversation and as a letter-writer, and it is said that on many occa- 
sions, when the Bacon-Shakspere subject was the theme, he has made impres- 
sions in various quarters which have become wide-spread and ineffaceable, and 
brought many converts into the fold. 

I have had the pleasure of knowing Mr. O'Connor personally, 
and I have found him, as his friend says, a person of rare conversa- 
tional powers, and possessed of a world of curious information. 

The Celtic blood, implied in his name, gives him a combative, 
chivalric spirit, which, however, is only aroused in defense of some 
person to whom he thinks injustice has been done. Hence, when 
Miss Bacon was universally denounced, he sprang to her defense;; 
when " the good gray poet," Walt Whitman, was persecuted by 
shallow hj^pocrites, he entered the lists as his chainpion; and when 
Richard Grant White assailed Mrs. Pott's Provms, in most virulent 
and unmanly fashion, he wrote a book which is one of the brightest, 
keenest and most vitriolic in our literature. Mr. O'Connor is of an 
unselfish nature, unfitted to do much for himself, but very potent as 
the defender of the oppressed. His heart permeates his intellect, 
and his sympathy is greater than his ambition. A kindly, gener- 
ous, admirable nature. 

II. Hon. Nathaniel Holmes. 

Among the pioneers of this giL-> t argument — and one who 1 as 

done perhaps more complete and comprehensive work than any 

other — is Hon. Nathaniel Holmes. Mr. Wyman calls him "the 

apostle of Baconianism, " and gives the following as the theorem 

of his book: 

This ■wor'k. \_T/n' Authorship of Shakespea7r, by Nathaniel Holmes] undertakes 
to demonstrate, not only that William Shakspere did not, but that Francis 
Bacon did write the Plays and poems. It presents a critical view of the personal 
history of the two men, their education, learning, attainments, surroundings and 
associates, the contemporaneousness of the writings in question, in prose and 
verse, an account of the earlier plays and editions, the spurious plays, and "the 
true original copies." It gives some evidence that Bacon was known to be the 
author by some of his contemporaries. It shows in what manner William Shak- 
spere came to have the reputation of being the writer. It exhibits a variety of facts 
and circumstances which are strongly suggestive of Bacon as the real author. A 
comparison of the writings of contemporary authors in prose and verse proves 
that no other writer of that age, but Bacon, can come into any competition for the 
authorship. It sifts out a chronological order of the production of the Plays, and 



THE BACONIANS. C)2 7 

of the several writings of Bacon, ascertaining the exact dates, whenever possible, 
and shows that the more significant parallelisms run in the same order, and are of 
such a nature, both by their dates and their own character, as absolutely to pre- 
clude all possibility of borrowing, otherwise than as Bacon borrowed of himself. 
It is amply demonstrated that mere common usage, or the ordinary practice of 
-writers, can furnish no satisfactory explanation of these parallelisms and identi- 
ties. There is a continuous presentation of parallel or identical passages through- 
out the work, with such commentary as was deemed necessary or advisable, in 
order to bring out their full force and significance; and twenty pages of minor 
parallelisms are given in one body, without commentary. 

It gives some extensive proofs that Bacon was a poet, and suggests some 
reasons for his concealment of his poetical authorship. There is some indication 
of the object and purpose the author had in view in writing these Plays. It is 
shown that the tenor of their teaching is in keeping with Bacon's ideas upon the 
subjects treated in them. The latter half of the book presents more especially the 
parallelisms in scientific and philosophical thought, with a view to show the identity 
of the Plays and the writings of Bacon, in respect to their philosophy and standard 
of criticism; and in this there is an endeavor to show that the character and drift 
of the philosophy of Bacon (as well as that of the Plays) was substantially identical 
with the realistic idealism of the more modern as of the more ancient writers on 
the subject. 

It is recognized that the evidences drawn from historical facts and biographical 
circumstances are not in themselves alone entirely conclusive of the matter, how- 
ever suggestive and significant, as clearing the way for more decisive proofs, or as 
raising a high degree of probability; and it is conceded that, in the absence of 
more direct evidence, the most decisive proof attainable is to be found in a critical 
and thorough comparison of the writings themselves, and that such a comparison 
will clearly establish the identity of the author as no other than Francis Bacon. 

Judge Holmes was l>(;)rn July 2, 1814, at Peterborough, New 
Hampshire; he graduated from Harvard University in 1837; was in 
the Harvard Law School during 1838-39, and was admitted to the 
bar, in Boston, in 1839. He practiced law at St. Louis from 1839 to 
1865; was one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri 
from 1865 to 1868, and Professor of Law in Harvard University 
from 1868 to 1872; he resumed the practice of the law in St. Louis in 
1872, and continued it until 1883, when he retired from business and 
returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he now resides. At St. 
Louis, Judge Holmes was Corresponding Secretary of the Academy 
of Science from 1857 to 1883, except when absent at Cambridge; 
and he has been a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences at 
Boston since 1870. 

His great work, The Authorship of Shakespeare, was first pub- 
lished in 1866 by Hurd & Houghton, of New York (now Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., of Boston and New York); the third edition of the 
book appeared in 1875, with an Appendix, containing ninety-tw^o 



92 8 CONCLUSIONS. 

pages of additional matters; and tlie last edition, published in 1886^ 

has grown into two volumes, and contains a supplement of one 

hundred and twenty pages of new matter. 

When in college Judge Holmes' studies had more tendency to- 

metaphysics than to literature, merely as such. He read the 

Shakespeare Plays, as he says, " to find out what great poetry was."" 

He read, in 1856, Delia Bacon's celebrated Putnam's Magazine- 

article, and thereupon, he says, " I set to work to make a more 

thorough study and comparison of the two sets of writings, and 

soon found matter for surprise. Within a year I had convinced 

myself of the identity of the author." He says: 

My method was to read Bacon, and when I came across anything that was. 
particularly Shakespearean to set the passage down in one column, and when I 
found anything in the Plays that was particularly Baconian, I set it down in the 
opposite column. Thus the context, thought and word were brought into com- 
parison. 

Another and very important part of the method was, to ascertain, as exactly 
as possible, the date of the first known appearance of each play, or of such as had 
appeared before the Folio ol 1623 was published, and of each one of Bacon's, 
acknowledged writings; and the result was that the stronger resemblances in thought, 
matter and word were pretty sure to appear in both writings if they were of nearly- 
the same date of composition. With these dates fixed in my memory, I was very 
sure to go, at once, to the right work in which to find some exhibition of the same 
matter, thought and expression. 

I need scarcely add that Judge Holmes' work is exceedingly^ 
able; it is and has been, since it was published, the standard author- 
ity of the Baconians; and it is markedly fair and judicial in its tone. 
One has but to look at the portrait of Judge Holmes, which we pre- 
sent herewith, to read the character of the man — plain, straight- 
forward, honest and capable. In fact, I might here observe that it 
seems to me that all the portraits of the original Baconians presented 
in this volume are remarkable for the intellectual power manifested 
in them. A finer collection of faces never adorned the advocacy of 
any theory. Instead of being, as the light-headed have charged, a 
set of visionaries, their portraits show them to be people of pene- 
trating, original, practical minds, who differ from their fellows sim- 
ply in their power to think more deeply, and in their greater cour- 
age to express their convictions. 

III. Dr. William Thomson. 

The next important contribution to the Baconian argument ''^ 





camon 



THE BACONIANS. 929 

order of time, was made by Dr. Vv'illiam Thomson, of Melbourne, 
Australia, in his work, The Political Purpose of the Penascence 
Drama: The Key of the Argument, an 8vo pamphlet of 57 pages, 
published at Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, in 1878, by George 
Robertson. 

I have not been able to procure copies of any of Dr. Thomson's 
publications. I learn from Mr. Wyman's Bibliography that Dr. 
Thomson was a practicing physician at Melbourne, Australia. Mr. 
Wyman says: 

He was evidently a fine scholar and an intense Baconian. He died during the 
past year (1884), at the age of sixty-three. 

Mr. Wyman sends me the following extract from a private letter 
received by him from Melbourne: 

The Baconian theory of Shakespeare's writings was an intense hobby with Dr. 
Thomson; and even the day before he died he sent for some books on the subject: 
the ruling passion strong in death. . . . His usefulness as a member of society 
was somewhat marred by his quarrelsome disposition. He was ever ready to put 
on the literary war-paint, and raised up numerous enemies thereby. 

From my knowledge of this end of the nineteenth century I 
should interpret this last sentence to signify that Dr. Thomson was 
persecuted and hounded by the advocates of " the divine Williams," 
as the Frenchman called him; and that because he maintained his 
convictions, — his intelligent convictions, — and would not agree 
to think as the unreasoning multitude around him, he was re- 
garded as a belligerent savage, ready at all times to don the war- 
paint. The man who in this world undertakes to think his ov.n 
thoughts, and express them, will find the angles of ten thousand 
elbows grinding his ribs continually. The fool who has no opinions, 
and the coward who conceals what he has, are always in rapport 
with the streaming, shouting, happy-go-lucky multitude; but woe 
unto the strong man who does his own thinking, and will not be 
bullied into silence !' 

Mrs. Pott writes me, recently: 

I have had a long and pleasant correspondence with Dr. Thomson, and I felt 
his death very much. He was a very clever man. His friends, (some of whom 
have been to see me), and his relations, claim for him that he was the originator of 
\\\&germ theories attributed to Koch. He illustrated the fact that phthisis is infec- 
tious and communicable by germs in the air, and proved that it was unknown in 
Australia until introduced in a definite manner by consumptive people from Eng- 
land. He was a man to be remembered. 



93° CONCLUSIONS. 

I regret that I cannot speak more fully concerning this able and 
resolute gentleman, who held up the torch of the new doctrine in 
the midst of an unbelieving generation, in the far-away antipodes. 

In 1880 he published at Melbourne, Australia, a book entitled: 
Our Renascence Drama; or, History made Visible. Sands and McDou- 
gal. 8vo., pp. 359. 

In 1881 he put forth a continuation of this work: William Shake- 
speare in Romance ami Reality. By William Thomson. Melbourne: 
Sands and McDougall. 8vo, pp. 95. 

In the same year he published at Melbourne a pamphlet of 
sixteen pages, entitled. Bacon and Shakespeare ; also another pamphlet 
of thirty-nine pages, entitled, Bacon., not Shakespeare, on Vivisection. 
In 1882 he published another pamphlet of forty-six pages, entitled, 
The Political Allegorirs in the Renascence Drama of Francis Bacon. In 
1883 he put forth a pamphlet of twenty-four pages, entitled, A 
Minute among the A/nc/iities, in W'hich he replies to certain pro-Shak- 
spere critics in leading Australian periodicals; claiming that he was 
denied a hearing by the papers that had attacked him, and was 
forced to defend himself and his doctrines in a pamphlet. This 
was the last of his utterances. 

IV. Mrs. Henrv Pott. 

In 1883 appeared one of the most important contributions yet 
made to the discussion of the Baconian question: The Fromus of 
Formularies and Elegancies, (being Private Notes, circ. 1594, hitherto 
unpublished), by Francis Bacon. Illustrated and elucidated by pass- 
ages from Shakespeare. By Mrs. Henry Pott. With Preface by 
E. A. Abbott, D.D., Head Master of the City of London School. 
1883. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 8vo, pp. 628. 

Mr. Wyman says: 

The MSS. known as the Froi/nis form a part of the Harleian collection in the 
British Museum. . . . They consist of fifty sheets or folios, nearly all in the hand- 
writing of Bacon, containing 1655 different entries or memoranda. The whole 
seems to have been kept by Bacon as a sort of commonplace-book, in which he 
entered at different times brief forms of expression, phrases, proverbs, verses from 
the Bible, and quotations from Seneca, Horace, Virgil, Erasmus, and many other 
writers. These are in various languages — English, French, Italian, etc. 

Mrs. Pott's great work — and it is indeed a monument of in- 
dustry and learning — has for its object to show that, while hundreds 



rilE BACONIANS. 931 

of these entries have borne no fruit in the preparation of Bacon's 
acknowledged works, they reappear with wonderful distinctness in 
the Shakespeare Plays. With phenomenal patience Mrs. Pott has 
worked out thousands of these identities in her book. I have al- 
ready made many citations from it. S"ome idea may be formed of 
the marvelous industry of this remarkable lady when I state that, 
to prove that we are indebted to Bacon for having enriched the 
English language, through the Plays, with those beautiful courte- 
sies of speech, " Good morrow," " Good day," etc., she carefully 
examined six thousand works anterior to or contemporary with Bacon. 

Mrs. Pott resides in London. She is nearing the fiftieth mile- 
stone of her life. She comes of the best blood of England and 
Scotland; of a long line of clergymen and lawyers. Judge Hali- 
burton, of Nova Scotia, celebrated as the writer of the "Sam Slick " 
papers, was a cousin of her mother. Her uncle, James Haliburton, 
was the first Englishman to attempt to investigate the Pyramids of 
Egypt. He lived among the Arabs and mastered their language, 
as well as the hieroglyphics on the ancient monuments. The first 
collection of mummies in the British Museum was presented by 
him, and bears his name. It is claimed that Sir Gardiner Wilkin- 
son appropriated his papers and labors without acknowledgment. 
Sir Walter Scott was a Haliburton. Mrs. Pott's father, John Peter 
Fearon, was a lawyer. " He came," says Mrs. Pott, in answer to 
my questions, " of a long line of Sussex clergy and country gentle- 
men. They seem, like the oaks, to have been indigenous to this soil." 
Among the acquaintances of Mrs. Pott's youth were the celebrated 
Stephensons and " dear old Professor Faraday." Mrs. Pott writes 
me a charming account of her early years, from which I take the 
liberty to quote a few sentences: 

Things in general fell to me to do. To ride, to botanize and analyze with 
my father; and to take notes for him at the Royal Institution lectures, which we 
attended thrice a week during the season, from the time I was nine until I was 
nineteen. We had an immense deal of company to entertain and cater for, and 1 
was dubbed " chief of the folly and decoration department; " and looking back, in 
these days of high schools and cram, I cannot think how I got my education — 
certainly not in the ordinary way. We had an extremely clever and original 
governess, who had lived for sixteen years at Oxford in the family of the Dean of 
Christ Church. She came to us overflowing with university ideas, knowledge of 
books, etc.; and she impenetrated my imagination with a desire to know all sorts 
of things which were considered to be far beyond the reaches of small souls; so 



932 CONCL USIOKS. 

that I remember stealing learned volumes from my father's shelves, hiding them 
like a guilty thing, and glorying in the feeling that I did understand them, and 
that if I had known the authors I could have talked to them to our mutual pleasure. 
And somewhat in this way I made Bacon's acquaintance. One day, (I was ten or 
eleven years old), an aunt took me to pay some visits. Whilst she and her friends 
prosed drearily on, so to me it seemed, I improved the dismal hour by taking a 
tour round the big drawing-room table, adorned with books radiating from the 
center. Soon I found one with short pieces in good print, and read: " What is 
truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not wait for an answer." I was delighted 
with this new view of the subject, and the mixture of gravity and fun made me feel 
at home with the author, for it was like my father. I read on, and I found it to be 
a very nice book; so I looked at the title-page, and afterwards asked at home if 
there were any books by a man cailed Francis Bacon, for I wished to read them. 
It was not my father that I asked, and I was told that it was a conceited and ridi- 
culous thing for a little girl to pretend to understand Bacon, who by all accounts 
was too wise for any one to understand. That fixed him in my mind as a thing to 
be seen into at the earliest opportunity; and somehow I must have got possessed 
of the Essays, for my old governess told me a few years ago that when I was thir- 
teen years of age we were speculating on the joys of heaven, and I said, to the 
great surprise of the audience, that viy idea would be to walk about and talk to 
Francis Bacon. Of this I have no recollection; but I do remember the violent 
repulsion which I felt at having to say " How d'ye do " to Lord Macaulay, because, 
in my secret heart, I thought him a villain for having written such an essay about 
Bacon. When I married, at the age of twenty, a friend asked me to name some- 
thing which I would like him to give me. I said, "Bacon's Essays;" and that 
little well-bound volume, (containing also the N'c7o Atlantis, The Wisdom of the 
Ancients, and The History of Henry I'll.), was the proximate cause of present 
effects. It used to be on the table by which I sat whilst I had my daily cup of 
five o'clock tea. As time went on, and in my happy little country home annual 
babies were added to the household, they were always with me at this hour, whilst 
the nurse was having her more important meal. Whilst they played and rolled 
about (five under six years of age), I could not do much, but I could catch a few 
refreshing ideas from my favorite author. I got to know the Essays through and 
through, and was not long in perceiving the resemblances of thought between pass- 
ages there and in Shakespeare. In the long damp evenings, before my husband 
came home, I used to amuse myself by hunting out in the Plays the lines which I 
thought I remembered. I began by trying to find out how much Bacon owes to 
Plato, and soon found that Shakespeare owed as much. This was before the days 
of a Shakespearean Concordance, a.X. least I never heard of any; but in the search 
for passages after my own fashion, I continually stumbled upon fresh resemblances 
of thought and diction so surprising, that, at last, I said one day to our learned 
old clergyman, the Rev. John Thomas Austen, that I felt sure that Bacon must 
have taken the youthful Shakespeare by the hand and coached him, or in some 
definite way helped him with his works. Mr. Austen said that others had thought 
the same thing, but that experts, the Shakespearean Society and others, had in- 
quired into the subject, which had been duly weighed and found wanting. I spoke 
to others on the same topic, but found that it was held to be ridiculous, or even 
offensive, to touch upon it. So, for a while, I said no more, but kept on scribbling 
notes on the margins of my books, until my own mind grew confirmed and auda- 
cious. I said to Mr. Austen that I had altered my ideas. Bacon did not help 
Shakespeare, but he wrote all the Plays himself. Then Mr. Austen laughed at me 



THE BACONIANS. n-- 

kindly, and said I ought to have known Lord Palmerston, who to his dying day 
maintained the same thing. I asked what were Lord Palmerston's views. Mr. Aus- 
ten said that he did not know; that he had some vaporous notions which the cir- 
cumstances of the men's lives did not warrant. I said that if the idea savored of 
" inane," 1 should be happy to be a fool in such good company as Lord Palmer- 
ston's; and privately continued my researches. In 1874 we were in London, and 
I casually met with J-'mser's Magazine, July or August, containing that remarkably 
fair, calm article which lias now become almost classic. It summed up all that 
had been published on the subject, and brought forward the names of Miss Delia 
Bacon, and Mr. W. H. Smith, and Judge Holmes, of not one of whom had I ever 
before heard. I was enchanted to find that there was nothing which upset the 
theories which had been building themselves up about Bacon. I told Archdeacon 
Pott, my husband's cousin, what I thought, and that the only scientific way of get- 
ting at the truth was to take, separately, every branch of Bacon's learning, every 
subject of his studies and researches, placing them under headings as in a 
cyclopedia, and comparing them with Shakespeare's utterances. I proposed to 
begin with concrete substantives, to prove (what I already knew was a fact) that 
Bacon and Shakespeare talked ol the same things; then I would collect all the pass- 
ages which showed their thoughts on those same things; and then, again, the 
actual ivoj-ds which they used to express their thoughts. My cousin thought that 
the task would be Herculean, and require an army of able workers, but no aid 
was then to be had. " The learned" did not like my notions, and fought shv of 
discussing them. " The unlearned " were useless; and the small amount of work 
which I paid for was done in a perfunctory or uncomprehending way which ren- 
dered it valueless. So I remembered my father's dictum that Time and Force 
are convertible terms; and I recollected also a mushroom which, in a day and a night, 
heaved up a great threshold stone at our garden door; and I thought that by small, 
persistent efforts I would be even with that mushroom. So I began systematically 
on the simplest subjects — Horticulture, Agriculture, etc.; arranging each detail 
under a heading, and writing on the right half of the sheet what Bacon said, and 
on the left what Shakespeare said. After doing Horticulture, Natural History, 
Medicine, Metallurgy, Chemistry, Meteorology, Astronomy, Astrology, Light, 
Heat, Sound, Man, Metaphysics, Life, Death, etc., I proceeded to Politics; the 
State, Kings, Seditions, etc.; Law, in all its branches; Mythology, Religion; the 
Bible, Superstitions, Witchcraft or Demonology, etc. Then History, Ancient and 
Modern, Geography, allusions to Classical Lore, Fiction, Arts, the Theater, 
Music, Poetry, Painting, Cosmetics, Dress, Furniture, Domestic Affairs. Trades, 
Professions; in short, everything. Then for the Grammar, (by aid of Dr. Abbott's 
Shakespearean Grammar), and the Philology, by an exhaustive process of com- 
parison, and by Promus notes. Then I wrote a sketch of Bacon's life, consisting 
of twenty-nine or thirty chapters, wherein, as I believed, I traced his history, 
written in the Plays. Fortunately I made no attempt to publish this. Mean- 
while I began another dictionary, which was well advanced when I broke down in 
health. Having taken out all the metaphors, similes and figurative turns of speech 
from the prose works, I compared them as before with the same sort of thing in 
the Plays. I made about 3,000 headings, illustrated by about 30,0CX) passages. 

This extraordinary mental activity and industry is quite Bacon- 
ian; it 

O'er-informs its tenement of clay. 
And frets the pigmy body to decay. 



934 



CONCL USIONS. 



It is the spirit mastering the flesh; and it reminds one of the 
expression used by one of the great French generals of the eight- 
eenth century, who found himself trembling, as he was going into 
battle: ''Thou tremblest, O body of mine! Thou wouldst trem- 
ble still more if thou knewest where I am going to take thee 
to-day ! " 

And this marvelous mental labor has been carried on in the 
midst of the demands of a large family and the exactions of many 
and high social duties. I was amused to find Mrs. Pott saying in 
a recent letter, — in which she was discussing some very grave ques- 
tions, — "But I must stop; for I have to give one of the children a 
lesson on the violin." 

Mrs. Pott is one of the most comprehensive and penetrating 
minds ever born on English soil, and her nation will yet recognize 
her as such; and she is, withal, a generous, modest and unpretend- 
ing lady. It is an auspicious sign for the future of the human race, 
when women, who in the olden time were the slaves or the play- 
things of men, prove that their more delicate nervous organization 
is not at all incompatible with the greatest mental labors or the pro- 
foundest and most original conceptions. And if it be a fact — as 
all creeds believe — that our intelligences are plastic in the hands of 
the external spiritual influences, then we may naturally expect that 
woman — purer, higher, nobler and more sensitive than man — 
will in the future lead the race up many of the great sun-crowned 
heights of progress, where thicker-brained man can only follow 
in her footsteps. 

I owe Mrs. Pott an apology for venturing to quote so exten- 
sively, as I have done, from her private letters, but I trust the 
pleasure it will give the public will plead my excuse. 

V. Other Advocates of Bacon. 

Besides these distinguished laborers in the field of this great dis- 
cussion, as advocates of Francis Bacon, there have been many 
humbler, but no less gallant defenders of his cause, who, in 
pamphlet, magazine, or newspaper, have set forth the reasons for 
the faith that was in them; and who deserve now to be remembered 
for their sagacity and courage. Among these I would mention. 



THE BACONIANS. (,35 

Francis Fearon, a brother of Mrs. Pott, whose able lecture, 
recently, upon the question of Bacon's authorship of the Plays, has 
been read by millions of people in England and America; the un- 
known writer of the article which appeared in Frasers Magazine, 
London, November, 1855; Richard J. Hinton, of Washington, D. C, 
who published an able three-column article in the Roimd Table, of 
New York, November 17, 1866, and has subsequently done yeoman 
service in the cause; Rev. A. B. Bradford, of Enon, Pennsylvania, 
who printed, in the Golden Age, May 30, 1834, and in the Argus and 
Radical, of Beaver, Pennsylvania, December 29, 1875, a report of a 
six-column lecture on the same theme; J. V. B. Prichard, who wrote 
a ten-page article for Frasc7-'s Magazine, London, August, 1874 
(which was reproduced in LittelVs Living Age, October, 1874, and 
attracted marked attention); the Ven. Archdeacon William T. Leach, 
LL.D.. of McGill College and University, Montreal, Canada, who 
delivered a lecture before the College on Bacon and Shakespeare, 
November 13, 1879, and warmly espoused the side of Francis 
Bacon as the author of the Plays. In addition to tliese I would 
also mention: George Stronach, M.A., who advocated the Baconian 
theory in The Hornet, London, August 11, 1875; ^^- J- Villemain, 
who published two articles, in L' Instruction Publique: Revue des 
Lettres, Science et Arts, Paris, August 31 and September 7, 1878. 
Also my friend O. Follett, Esq., of Sandusky, Ohio, who printed a 
pamphlet of forty-seven pages. May, 1879, and another May, i88i,of 
twelve pages, and has contributed a strong communication to the 
Register, of Sandusky, Ohio, April 5, 1883, in answer to Richard 
Grant White's "Bacon-Shakespeare Craze." Mr. Follett has, I un- 
derstand, ready for the press a larger work on the Baconian author- 
ship, which I hope will soon see the light. I would also refer to 
Henry G. Atkinson, F.G.S., who, in the Spiritualist, London, July 
4, 1879, and in many other periodicals, has advocated the Baconian 
theory; also to O. C. Strouder, author of an article in the IJ'itten- 
berger Magazine, of Springfield, Ohio, November, 18S0; also to 
William W. Ferrier, of Angola, Indiana, who contributed num- 
erous able articles on the subject to the Herald of that town in 
the year 18S1; also to E. W. Tullidge, editor of Tullidges Quarterly 
Magazine, Salt Lake City, Utah, who has written several strong 



936 



CONCL USIONS. 



articles in advocacy of Bacon's authorship of the Plays; also to 
John W. Bell, of Toledo, Ohio, who has written several newspaper 
articles of the same tenor; also to Robert M. Theobald, of London, 
England, one of the officers of the Bacon Society of London, 
and an able and earnest advocate of Baconianism in leading 
English journals. I would also mention the names of Edward 
Fillebrown, of Brookline, Massachusetts, and the late Hon. Geo. B. 
Smith, at one time a leading lawyer of the State of Wisconsin, 
whom I had the pleasure of knowing. I would also refer to the 
unknown writer of an able article in defense of Bacon's authorship 
of the Plays, in the Allgemeine Zeitung^ Stuttgart and Munich, March 
I, 1883, four columns in length. I would also refer to the labors of 
two of my friends, William Henry Burr, of Washington, D. C, a 
powerful controversialist upon the question; and to Hon. J. H. 
Stotsenburg, of New Albany, Indiana, the author of a very interest- 
ing series of articles in an Indianapolis newspaper, entitled "An 
Indian in Indiana." 

VI. Appleton Morc.an. 

I regret that I cannot include in this catalogue of Baconians 
Mr. Appleton Morgan, the author of The Shakespearean Myt/i, pub- 
lished i.n 1 881, by Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, Ohio (8vo, 
pp. 342); but Mr. Morgan writes me recently that he is not a 
Baconian. This is the more to be regretted because his book is 
a powerful assault upon Shakspere's authorship; and it seems to 
me that if Shakspere did not write the Plays there is no one left 
to dispute the palm with Francis Bacon. Certainly there could 
not have been half a dozen Shakespeares lying around loose in 
London just at that time. Nature does not breed her monsters 
in litters. While Mr. Morgan gives us in his work few new facts, 
not already contained in the writings of Miss Bacon, William Henry 
Smith and Judge Holmes, he arrays the argument in the case with 
the skill of a trained lawyer, and brings out his conclusions in a 
forcible manner. But I regret to see evidences, in some of Mr. 
Morgan's recent utterances, which lead me to fear that he has re- 
canted the opinions expressed in T/ie Myth, and that he thinks the 
man of Stratfgrd may, after all, have written the Plays ! 




lYf/' 



THE BACONIANS. 

VII. Professor Thomas Davidson. 

I take Pleasure in presenting to the public the features of one 
of the most accomplished scholars in America, who, while not an 
avowed Baconian, has been largely identified with the presentation 
of this book to the public, and therefore deserves to be mentioned 
in it. Professor Davidson was sent to my home by the New York 
World, in August, 1887, to examine the proof-sheets of this work. 
He came believing that William Shakspere was undoubtedly the 
writer of the Plays; he left convinced that this was almost impos- 
sible; and since then, in numerous newspaper articles, he has pre- 
sented most powerful arguments in support of his views. Only a 
great man could thus overcome, in a few hours, the prejudices of a 
life-time; only an honest man would dare avow the change. Prof. 
Davidson is both. 

He comes of the great race of Burns and Scott, and Hume and 
Mackintosh; — a race whose part in the world has been altogether 
out of proportion to the dimensions of their stormy little land; a 
land which sits with the fair fields of England at her knees, and the 
everlasting clouds upon her mountain brows. 

Professor Davidson was born October 25, 1840, at Deer, Aber- 
deenshire. He graduated as the first in his class at Aberdeen in 
i860. He has traveled in Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Canada, 
the United States, etc. From 1875 to 1877 he was a member of the 
Harvard University Visiting Committee. He lias written for all 
the leading magazines and reviews of England and America. His 
lingual acquirements and his universal learning are such that he 
has been aptly termed " the Admirable Crichton of recent times." 

But intellect and learning are cheap in these latter ages; they 
are produced in superabundance. Professor Davidson has that, 
however, which is better than a thoroughly-stored brain, to-wit: a 
kind, broad heart, which feels for the miseries of his fellow-men. 
The acquisitions of the memory cannot be expected to be perpetu- 
ated beyond the disintegration of the brain which holds them; but 
the impulses for good come from the Divine Essence, and will live 
when all the universities are but little heaps of dust. 

VIII. James T. Cobb. 

And here I would note the labors of an humble and unostentatious 



938 



CONCL USIONS. 



gentleman, who, while he has himself, I believe, published nothing 
touching the Baconian controversy, has contributed not a little to 
the elucidation of many remarkable parallelisms of thought and 
expression between Bacon's acknowledged writings and the Shake- 
speare Plays. Some of these have been used by Judge Holmes and 
others by myself. Mr. James T. Cobb, of Salt Lake City, Utah, 
school-teacher, born in Boston, graduated in 1S55 from Dartmouth 
College, resided in different Western States, and finally removed 
to the great Salt Lake Basin. Mr. Cobb's verbal knowledge of the 
Baconian and Shakespeare writings is equaled only by his pene- 
tration into the spirit of the great mind which produced both. 

IX. W. H. Wyman. 

I cannot close this chapter without some reference to one who, 
while not a Baconian, has yet materially contributed to the discus- 
sion of the question. I refer to Mr. W. H. Wyman, of Cincinnati, 
Ohio, author of The Bibliography of the Bacon-Shakespeare Contro- 
versy, with Notes and Extracts, i^Vi\A\^\\^dL in 1S84 by Cox & Co., Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio — a reasonably fair and well arranged compilation. 

It is singular, indeed, that one who believed the Baconian theory 
was a delusion and a snare should be at so much pains to collect 
every detail of the controversy, amounting in all, in 1884, to 255 
titles of books, pamphlets, essays and newspaper articles. So far 
back as 1882 we find Mr Wyman publishing in a Wisconsin paper . 
a partial bibliographical list (25 titles); this grew in the same year 
to a small book of 63 titles and eight pages; this in 1884 to the 
work referred to of 255 titles and 119 pages; and I am informed 
Mr. Wyman has now the material on hand for a large volume, which 
will, I trust, soon be published. 

Mr. Wyman was born in Canton, New York, July 21st, 1831. 
In 1838 he removed with the rest of his family to Madison, Wiscon- 
sin, then almost a wilderness. His father was publisher of a news- 
paper there, and Mr. Wyman received most of his education in the 
printing-office. He has been in the service of the ^tna Insurance 
Company for thirty-two years, and now holds the responsible place 
of Assistant General Agent for that corporation in the State of 
Ohio. * 



. CHAPTER IV. 
OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 

No more yet oi' this, 
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day. 
Not a relation for a breakfast, nor 
Befitting this first meeting. 

Tempest^ v, i. 

THE Cipher establishes that Francis Bacon wrote the Shake- 
speare Plays; but it proves much more than this to the reason- 
ing mind. 

The first of the Plays, we are told by Halliwell-Phillipps, (the 
highest authority on the subject), appeared March 3, 1592. But 
Bacon was born January 22, 1 561; so that he was thirty-one years 
of age when the first Shakespeare play was placed on the stage. 

Can any one believe that the vastly active intellect of Francis 
Bacon lay fallow from youth until he was thirty-one years of age? 

The Rev, Mr. Newman, in his funeral oration over the son of 

Senator Stanford, of California, collated many instances, going to 

show how early the greatness of the mind manifests itself in men 

of exceptional ability. He says: 

In all this early intellectual superiority he reminds us that the- history of heroes 
is the history of youth. At eleven, Bacon was speculating on the La-d's of tJie 
Imagination; at twelve, a student at Cambridge; at sixteen, expressing his dis- 
like for the philosophy of Aristotle; at twenty, the author of a paper on the defects 
of universities; at twenty-one, admitted to the bar; at twenty-eight, appointed 
Queen's Counsel Extraordinary. He reminds us of the tender and eloquent Pas- 
cal, who, at the age of sixteen, published a Treatise on Conic Sections; at sev- 
enteen, suggested the hydraulic press; at twenty, anticipated by his inventions 
the works of Galileo and Descartes, and at twenty-four was an authority in higher 
mathematics. He reminds us of Grotius, who entered the University of Leyden 
at twelve; at fourteen, published an edition of Martianus Capella, which dis- 
closed his acquaintance with Cicero, Aristotle, Pliny, Euclid, Strabo, and other 
great writers; at fifteen, was an attache of a Dutch embassy to Henry IV.; at six- 
teen, was admitted to practice; at twenty-four, was Advocate-General of the Treas- 
sury of Holland, and at twenty-five was an authority on international law. He 

939 



940 



CONCL U SIGNS. 



recalls to us Gibbon, who was in his Latin at seven; a student at Oxford at fifteen; 
a lover of Locke and Grotius and Pascal at seventeen, and at twenty-five had 
acquired the scholarship, gathered the materials, and formed the plan of that great 
history which has given immortality to his name. He brings to mind our own 
Hamilton, who entered college at fifteen; was an orator at seventeen; a political 
writer at eighteen; at twenty, was on Washington's staff; at twenty-four, was a 
legislator, and at thirty-two was Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. 
Nay, more; his mental promise was like that of Washington, of Pitt, of Whitfield, 
of Raphael, of Agassiz, in their early manhood. 

And yet, up to 1592, when Bacon was thirty-one years of age, 
he had published nothing but a pamphlet on a religious topic, and 
a brief letter on governmental questions. What was he doing be- 
fore he assumed the mask of Shakespeare ? 

I. Early Plays. 

He had, before " William Shagsper of thone part " appeared on 

the scene, created a whole literature. That mighty renaissance of 

English genius and reconstruction of the drama, which marks the 

years between 1580 and 161 1, had begun while the beadles were 

still amusing themselves and exercising their muscles over the raw 

back of Shagsper; and when Shake-speare appeared in 1592, as an 

author, he simply inherited a style of workmanship and a form of 

expression already created. Swinburne says: 

In his early plays the style of Shakespeare was not for the most part distinctively 
his own. It was that of a crew, a knot of young writers, among whom he found at 
once both leaders and followers, to be guided and to guide.' 

The young lawyer, Francis Bacon, being possessed of the crea- 
tive, poetical instinct, and having discovered that there was in the 
theaters a veritable mine of money, and that " a philosopher may 
be rich, if he will," and still be a philosopher, poured forth, between 
the year 1581, when he was twenty years of age, and 1592, when 
he assumed the Shake-speare mask, a whole body of plays. They 
were not perfected or elaborated; they were youthful and immature 
experiments; many of them, most of them, have perished; they 
were dashed off to meet some temporary money necessity; just as 
we are told the original play of The Merry Wives of Windsor 
was written in fourteen days; and Bacon's chaplain, Rawley, notes 
the rapidity with which he composed his writings. The very names 
of many of these plays are lost; some we have in glimpses; three 

' Swinburne, A Study of Shah., p. 243. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 941 

years before Shakespeare began to write, in 1589, Peele addressed a 
farewell to the Earl of Essex, Norris and Drake on their expedition 
to Cadiz, in which he says: 

Bid theater anei proud tragedians, 
Bid Malioniet, Scipio and mighty Tiintburlain, 
Kitig Charlemagne, Tom Stuck}' and the rest 
Adieu. To arms, etc' 

Now, we know that there is a play of Tamhiniaine, attributed to 
Marlowe, and a play of Tom Stuckley, the author of which is un- 
known; hence we may reasonably infer that Mahomet^ Scipio and 
King Charlemagne were also plays, then being acted on the stage. 
And the names imply that they were kindred in substance to Tam- 
biirlainc and Doctor Faustiis; that is to say, they dealt with vast 
characters and huge events, which naturally would fascinate the wild 
imagination of a young man of genius; and they touclied upon 
subjects which might be reasonably expected to catch the attention 
of one fresh from his academical studies. Tamburlainc ruled a 
great part of the world; so did Mahomet; so did Charlemagne; while 
the career of Scipio Africanus and his mighty victories was as 
extraordinary as the powers which Doctor Faustus, through his 
compact with the evil one, gained over the forces of nature, over 
life and the tenants of the grave. 

And in addition to these lost plays there are fifteen other 
dramas that have survived the chances of time, and have been 
attributed by many commentators to the pen which wrote the 
Shakespeare Plays, to- wit: The Arraignment of Paris, Ardcu of 
Fever sJt am, George-a-Greene, Locrine, King Edward III., Mitccdoriis, 
Sir John. Oldcastle, Thomas Lord Cromwell, The Merry Devil of Ed- 
monton. The London Prodigal, The Puritan {or the JTidm' of JVatling 
Street), A Yorkshire Tragedy, Fair Em, The Tivo Noble Kinsmen, and 
The Birth of Merlin. Many of these are now printed in all com- 
plete editions of Shakespeare's works. In addition to these, 
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, which was not inserted by Heminge and 
Condell in the great Folio, was published in quarto in 1609, with 
the name of William Shakespeare on the title-page, and was played 
at Shakespeare's play-house. It is now generally conceded to be 
the work of Shakespeare. There was also a play called Love's 

1 School o/S/iak., vol. i, p. 153. 



942 CONCL USION S. 

Labors Won, named by Meres in 1598 as the work of Shakespeare, 
which is either lost, or has survived under some other name. There 
was also another play entitled Duke Humphrey, attributed to 
Shakespeare during his lifetime, which was destroyed by the care- 
lessness of a servant of Warburton, in the early part of the last 
century. 

Now, it must be remembered that all of the list of fifteen plays 
given above, except The Merry Devil of Edmonton and The Tivo Noble 
Kinsmen, were published during Shakspere's life-time, in nearly every 
instance with the name of William Shakespeare, or his initials, on the 
titlepage, and The Merry Devil of Edmonton was announced as the 
joint work of Shakespeare and Rowley, and The Two Noble Kins- 
men as having been written by Shakespeare and Fletcher.' So that 
we have just as good authority for assigning most of these plays to 
Shakespeare as we have for attributing to him those that go by his 
name. Besides, the critical acumen of learned commentators has 
discovered abundant evidence that they all emanated from the 
same mind which produced Hamlet and Lear. 

I regret that the limitations of space in this book, already too 
bulky, prevent me from going fully into all these matters; but 
they are " not a relation for a breakfast," but a subject that may 
be recurred to hereafter. 

The great German critics have, it seems to me, taken juster 

views upon these " doubtful plays," as they are called, than the 

English. Tieck refers to them in his Alt-Englisches Theater, oder Sup- 

plemente zuin Shakspere, as follows: 

Those dramas which Shakspere produced in his youth, and which Englishmen, 
through a misjudging criticism, and a tenderness for his fame (as they thought) have 
refused to recognize. 

Tieck is speaking of George-a-Greene. He also, from internal 
evidences, attributes Eair Em, The Birth of Merlin, The Merry 
Devil of Edmonton, Edward III., and Arden of Eevershani, to Shake- 
speare; while Schlegel says that Sir John Oldcastle, Thomas Lord 
Cromwell, and The Yorkshire Tragedy, are " unquestionably Shake- 
speare's." 

The Yorkshire Tragedy appeared in 1608 with Shakespeare's name 
on the title page; The Puritan, or the JVidow of Watling Street, was 

' Morgan, Shakespearean Myth, p. 286. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 



943 



published in 1607, as "written by W. S.;" The London Prodigal was 
published in 1605, as " by William Shakespeare;" the play of TVz^^wa^ 
Lord Cromwell was published in 16 13, "written by W. S.;" Locrine 
was published in 1595 as "newly set forth, overseene and corrected 
by W. S.;" The Life of Sir John Oldcastle was published 1600 with 
the initials "W. S." on the title-leaf. Speaking of Arden of Fever- 
sham, Swinburne says: 

Either this play is the young Shakespeare's first tragic masterpiece, or there 
was a writer unknown to us then alive, and at work for the stage, ivho excelled him 
as a tragic dramatist not less, to say the very least, than he was excelled by Marlowe 
as a tragic poet. 

He adds that Goethe is said to have believed that Shakespeare 
wrote this play.' 

Here, then, is a whole body of literature, Shakespearean in its 
characteristics, and yet discarded by Heminge and Condell from the 
first complete edition of Shakespeare's works, printed from the "true 
original copies." And, if I had the space for the inquiry, I could 
show that these plays are full of Baconianisms, if I may coin a x.ord. 
For instance, Bacon had returned from the higher civilization of 
France, (nearer geographically to the surviving Roman cidture), 
full of all the arts — music, poetry and painting. We see many refer- 
ences to the art of painting in the Shakespeare Plays; it was still a 
foreign art; and Swinburne says, speaking of Arden of Feversham: 

I cannot remember, in the whole radiant range of the Elizabethan drama, more 
than one parallel tribute paid in this play by an English poet to the yet foreign art 
of painting.'-' 

And it fs a curious fact that the words, — 

Come, make him stand upon this mole-hill here 
That raught at mountains with outstretched arms. 
Yet parted but the shadow with his hand, — 

which we find in The Third Part of King Llenry F/., are taken 
bodily from The True Tragedy of Piehard, Duke of York, a play not 
published as Shakespeare's. 

And Swinburne finds still another play. The Spanish Tragedy, 
which he believes to be the work of Shakespeare. He says: 

I still adhere to Coleridge's verdict, . . . that those magnificent passages, 
well-nigh overcharged at every point with passion and subtlety, sincerity and 

^A Study of Shakespeare, p. 135. '.^ Study 0/ Shakespeare, p. 141. 



c>44 • CONCL USIONS. 

instinct of pathetic truth, are no less like Shakespeare's work than unlike John- 
son's.' 

In short, the genius we call Shakespeare's is found dissociated 
from the man Shakspere, and covering a vast array of matter which 
the play-actor had nothing to do with: for Fair Em appeared 
in 1587, while Shakspere was holding horses at the do; : f the play- 
house; and some others of the piays, above named, now believed 
to have been written by the Shakespeare pen, were never associated 
with Shakspere's name during his lifetime, nor long afterwards. 
And all this is compatible with the theory that a scholar of vast 
intellectual precocity, like Bacon, and of immense fecundity, flooded 
the stages of London with plays — to make money — for years before 
Shakspere left Stratford; btit it is utterly incompatible with ttie 
belief that the man who left nothing behind him to show any 
mental activity (except, of course, his alleged plays), and who dwelt 
during the last years of his life at Stratford in utter torpicUty of 
mind, could have produced this array of unclaimed dramas. And 
the reader will note that most of these plays were printed, for the first 
time, between 1607 and 1613, just at the time Bacon was drawing to 
the close of his poetical productiveness. It was as if he was trying 
to preserve to posterity the history of the growth of his own mind 
from its first crude, youthful beginnings to its perfect culmination; 
from Stuckley and Fair Em to Othello and Lear. 

Besides these earlier plays there were a number which, it is 
claimed, Shakespeare used and enlarged, and which are supposed 
by the critics to have been written by other men, but which were in 
reality Bacon's first essays upon those subjects. For it is not proba- 
ble that any dramatic writer would re-cast and improve and glorify 
another man's work. We can conceive of Charles Dickens, for in- 
stance, taking up an immature sketch of his youth, and enlarging it 
into David Copperfield or Bleak House ; but we cannot imagine him 
taking a story written by Thackeray and re-writing it and publish- 
ing it under his own name. There, for instance, is the Contention 
between the Houses of York and Lancaster., the early King John, the 
Famous Victories, and that Hamlet which it is claimed was first 
played in 1585. And here is another instance of the same kind. 
Swinburne says: 

1.4 study of Shakespeare, p. 144. 




/i/A^uj-c u.^ jy^ i^cAy Su^cu. 




OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 945 

The refined instinct, artistic judgment and consummate taste of Shakespeare 
were never perhaps so wonderfully shown as in his recast of another man's work 
— a man of real if rough genius for comedy — which we get in 77/,' Taming of the 
Shiv7i'. Only the collation of scene with scene, then of speech with speech, then 
of line with line, will show how much may be borrowed from a stranger's material, 
and how much may be added to it by the same stroke of a single hand. All the 
force and humor alike of character and situation belong to Shakespeare s eclipsed 
and forlorn precursor; he has added nothing, he has tempered and enriched every- 
thing. The luckless author of the first sketch is like to remain a man as name- 
less as the deed of the witches in Macbeth, unless some chance or caprice of 
accident should suddenly flash favoring light on his now impersonal and indiscov- 
erable individuality. . . . On the other hand, he is, of all the Pre-Shakespeareans 
known to us, incomparably the truest, the richest, the most powerful and original 
humorist; one, indeed, without a second on that ground, for the rest are nowhere.' 

And how comes it that the world was, jtist at that time, so full 
of mighty but unknown geniuses? It seems to have rained Shake- 
speares. 

Then there is The Wami?tg for Fail- JVomen, arising out of a 
murder in 1573, supposed to have been written before 1590, and 
published in 1599. Mr. Collier^ gives excellent reasons for believing 
that it was written by the man who wrote Shakespeare; and says 
the identities of language and thought are so great that it is aiit 
Shakespeare aut diaboliis. And Collier^ cites the names of a number 
of other plays, "domestic tragedies" he calls them, which, like The 
Yorkshire Tragedy and Ardcn of Feversham, were founded upon events 
of the day; there is, for instance, Two Tragedies in One, based upon 
the assassination of a merchant of London, Tlic Fair Maid of Bris- 
tol, The Stepnothers Tragedy, The Tragedy of John Cox of Collumpton, 
The Tragedy of Page of Plymouth, Blaek Bateman of the North, etc., 
all founded on actual occurrences which attracted public attention, 
and which were seized upon by some fertile mind as subjects on 
which to dash off short plays that would draw the multitude, and 
fill the pockets of actors and author. Many of these "domestic 
tragedies " are lost, but nearly all those that have been accidentally 
preserved are deemed by our best critics, English and German, to 
bear traces of the Shakespearean mind. And nearly all these ante- 
date the time when Shakespeare appeared as a play-writer. 

II. The Play of " Edward III." 

It is generally supposed that Shakespeare originated that form 

> A Study of S/tak., p. 124. ' Ibid., p. 437- 

^History of Dram. Poetry, vol. ii, p. 440. 



946 CONCL USIONS. 

of drama known as the historical play. This is not true. Marlowe 
preceded him with Edward II., and an unknown writer with 
Edward III. Here we see that the purpose of teaching the multi- 
tude the history of their own country in plays, descriptive of the 
great events of different reigns, began before Shakspere appeared 
on the scene, probably before he left Stratford. 

Of the author of this play of Edtvard III. Swinburne says: 

He could write, at times, very much after the fashion of the adolescent Shake- 
speare.' 

This play was first printed in 1596, and ran through several 
anonymous editions. Collier speaks of it as undoubtedly Shake- 
speare's.^ Capell published it in 1760, as *' thought to be writ by 
Shakespeare." Knight says "there was no known author capable 
of such a play."' Ulrici is positive that Shakespeare wrote it. 

There is a curious fact about this play. It contains the following 

line: 

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 

And this line is precisely repeated in Shakespeare's 94th sonnet: 
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 

Either the unknown author stole this line bodily from Shake- 
speare, or Shakespeare stole it bodily from him: for in neither case 
were there any marks to show that it was a quotation. Public pur- 
loining of whole lines is very unusual in any age; but it would be 
most natural for an author to copy a few expressions from himself, . 
with intent to preserve them. 

The writer of the play puts this speech into the mouth of the 

Countess of Salisbury: 

As easy may my intellectual soul 
Be lent away and yet my body live, 
As lend my body, palace to my soul, 
Away from her, and yet retain my soul. 
My body is her bower, her court, her abbey, 
And she an angel pure, divine, unspotted; 
If I should lend her house, my lord, to thee, 
I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me. 

"This last couplet," says Swinburne, "is very much in the style 
of Shakespeare's sonnets; nor is it wholly unlike even the dramatic 

' A Study of Shak., p. 235. ' Knight's Doubt/iti Plays, p. 279. 

^ History 0/ Dravt. Poetry, vol. iii, p. 311 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 947 

Style of Shakespeare in his youth.'" He might have added that 
the whole passage is decidedly Shakespearean. 

The "angel, pure, divine, unspotted;' reminds us of the descrip- 
tion in Henry VII I. ^ v, 4, of Queen Katharine as "a most unspotted 
lily." 

I quoted on page 534, ante, from 2d Henry VI., v, r, the lines: 

These brows of mine 
Whose smile and power, li/^e to Achilles' spear. 
Is able 'cvitli the change to kill and cure. 

And in this play of Edicard III. I find these lines: 

The poets write \.\>ia.X. great Achilles' spear 
Could heal the woujid it made. 

I could fill many pages with parallel passages, but that I have 
not the space. There can be no doubt that Edward III. was written 
by the same pen that wrote the Shakespeare Plays; and if Shakspere 
was Shake-speare, why was it published anonymously; why did the 
thrifty player permit it to be sold without the pennies going into 
his own pocket ? 

III. The Play of "Stuckley." 

There was an English adventurer, Sir Thomas Stuckley, who was 
first cousin to Sir Amias Paulet, the English Minister at the court 
of France while Bacon was an attache of the legation. He was a 
famous character during Bacon's youth — bold, warlike, chivalrous, 
unfortunate; the very character to captivate a youthful imagina- 
tion. He was killed at the battle of Alcazar, in Africa, August 4, 
157S, about the time that Bacon returned to England from Paris' 
and commenced the study of the law. His relationship to Sir 
Amias Paulet must have made this dashing adventurer the sub- 
ject of a great deal of conversation among the members of the 
English legation in Paris; and what more natural than that Francis 
Bacon, if he had the dramatic instinct, should choose this interest- 
ing theme as the subject of one of his first plays. Stuckley raises a 
company of soldiers to fight in Ireland; he quarrels with the Cecils; 
goes to Spain; is imprisoned by the Governor of Cadiz; enters the 
service of Philip II.; the Pope makes him Marquis of Ireland, for 

' .4 Study 0/ S/tak., p. 253. 



948 CONCL USIONS. 

which country he sets sail; he lands in Portugal; joins a Portuguese- 
expedition to Barbary, and is there slain — a wild, romantic, rash 
and unreasoning career. 

The play is evidently written by a lawyer; for he drags in law 
studies and law books, neck and heels, and to do so makes Stuckle3r 
a law-student, when the fact was Stuckley never studied law. 

Old Sliicklcy. I had as lief you'd seen him in the Temple walk, 
Conferring with some learned counselor, 
Or at the moot upon a point of law.' 

When he sees the array of swords, daggers and bucklers in his 

son's room the old man exclaims: 

Be these your master's books ? 
For Littleton, Stanford and Brooke 
Here's long sword, short sword and buckler, 
But all's for the bar; yet I meant to have my son 
A Barrister, not a Barrator.'^ 

And Tom is made to express the disgust of a young law student:: 

Nay, hark you, father, I pray you be content: 

I have done my goodwill, but it will not do. 

John a Nokes and John a Style and I cannot cotton. 

Oh, this law-French is worse than buttered-mackerell. 

Full o' bones, full o' bones. It sticks here, it will not down. 

And tliis reminds us of the young man who said, " The bar will- 
be my bier." 

Mr. Simpson sees evidence that this play was an early produc- 
tion of Shakspere; but what had the boy of Stratford to do with 
law-books ? And how did he acquire the intimate knowledge of 
Stuckley's biography manifested in this play, and which astonishes 
the antiquarians ? 

And why should Shakspere drag into this play an allusion to 

Bacon's home, at St. Albans, just as we have seen the same village 

forced twenty odd times into the text of the Shakespeare Plays? 

It appears thus in the play of Tom Stuckley: 

Vernon. Some conference with these gentlemen my friends 
Made me neglect mine hour; but when you please 
I now am ready to attend on you. 

Harbai't. It is well done, we will away forthwith. 
St. Albans, though the day were further spent, 
We may well reach to bed to-night.^ 

' Act I, scene 1. ^ Ibid. ^Act i. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACOX. 949 

Now, St. Albans had nothing to do with the action of the piece; 
we hear no more of it; Harbart does not go there, that we know of. 
Why did the Stratford boy, if this play is, as Simpson thinks, one 
of his early productions, without any necessity thus introduce the 
place of Bacon's residence into his play ? What thread of con- 
nection, geographical, political, poetical or biographical, was there 
between Stratford and St. Albans ? 

I have only space to give two or three extracts to show the re- 
semblance between Tom Stuckley and the Shakespeare writings. 

In Stuckley we have: 

Mix not my for'ivard summer with sharp breath; 
Nor intercept my purpose, being good. 

Compare this with Shakespeare's: 

Here stands the spring whom you have stained with mud; 
This goodly summer with your 'winter mixed} 

In Stuckley we have: 

He soonest loseth that despairs to win. 

This ib the embryo of the thought: 

Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might gain» 
By fearing to attempt.*' 

In Stuckley we find: 

Nay, if you look but on his mind,, 
Much more occasion shall ye find to love hinr. 

Compare this with Shakespeare's 69th sonnet: 

They look into the beauty of the mind. 
In Stuckley we have: 

You muddy slave. 
In Shakespeare we have: 

You muddy rascal.^ 

In Stuckley we have: 

And that which in mean men would seem a fault. 
As leaning to ambition, or such like. 
Is in a king but well beseeming him. 

^Titus Andronkus, v, 2. ^ ^reas^crc for Measure, i, 5. ^Set Henry IV., ii,4. 



95 o CONCL USIONS. 

In Shakespeare we have: 

That in the captain's but a choleric word, 
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.' 

And we catch a glimpse of the date of this composition by the 
following allusion: 

Will you so much annoy your vital powers 
As to oppress them with the prison stink? 

Mr. Simpson calls attention to the following extract from Bacon's 
Natural History: 

The most pernicious infection, next the plague, is the smell of the jail, when 
prisoners have been long and close and nastily kept; whereof we have had in our 
time experience twice or thrice; when both the judges that sat upon the jail, and 
numbers of those that attended the business, or were present, sickened upon it or 
died.'^ 

This allusion in the play to " the prison stink" probably refers 
to " the black assizes " at Oxford, in 1577, or at Exeter, in 1586; and 
the probability is that the play of Stuckley was written by Francis 
Bacon, soon after the death of Stuckley, and subsequent to his return 
to England; and that reference was therein had to '' the black assizes " 
at Oxford, in 1577. 

I would close by calling attention to the Shakespearean ring in 
these lines from Stuckley 's address to King Philip of Spain: 

Right high and mighty, if to kings, installed 

And sacredly anointed, it belong 

To minister true justice, and relieve 

The poor oppressed stranger, then from thee, 

Renowned Philip, that by birth of place 

Upholds the scepter of a royal king. 

Stuckley, a soldier and a gentleman, — 

But neither like a soldier nor a man 

Of some of thy unworthy subjects handled, — 

Doth challenge justice at thy sacred hands. 

IV. Christopher Marlowe. 

We see it intimated in the Cipher that the plays of Christopher 
Marlowe were written by Francis Bacon; that he was Bacon's first 
mask or cover. Is this statement improbable or unreasonable ? 

In the first place, let us inquire who Marlowe was. Christopher 
Marlowe, or Marlin, as the name was often spelled, was born in 

' Measure for Measure, ii,2. ^ Natural History, cent, x. No. 014. 




Dr. WILLIAM THOMSON, 

OF MELBOl-RNE, AISTRALIA; AUTHOR OF "THE RENASCENXE DRAMA.' 



\. 



^ 



THER MA SKS OF FRANCIS BA CON. 95 i 

Canterbury precisely two months before the birth of Shakspere. 
His father was " clarke of St. Marie's." Marlowe was educated at the 
King's School, in his native town, and at Benet College, Cambridge, 
Soon after coming of age, it is supposed, he followed the soldiers 
to the wars in the Low Countries. The next we hear of him is as 
an actor in London, and the author of Tambnrlainc in 1587, when 
twenty-three years of age. 

We find the same incompatibilities between the work and the 
life of Marlowe which exist in the case of Shakspere. While his 
biography tells us that he was a drunken, licentious, depraved 
creature, who was about to be arrested for blasphemy, and es- 
caped the gallows or the stake by being killed in a drunken brawl, 
"stabbed to death by a bawdy servingman rival of his in his lewd 
love;"' at the same time he appears by his writings to have been 
an exquisite poet who actually revolutionized English literature. 

The Encyclopaedia Britainnca" says: 

He is the greatest discoverer, the most daring and inspired pioneer, in all our 
poetic literature. Before him there was neither genuine l>lank 7>erse nor a genuine 
tragedy in our langttage. After his arrival the way was prepared, the paths were 
made straight for Shakespeare. 

And the same high authority says, speaking of Tambiirlaine: 

It is the first poem ever written in English blank verse, as distinguished from 
mere rhymeless decasyllabics; and it contains one of the noblest passages, perhaps, 
indeed, the noblest, in the literature of the world, ever written by one of the great- 
est masters of poetry. 

And it is a curious fact that Shakespeare steps upon the boards, 
as a dramatic writer, just as Marlowe steps off. Marlowe was slain 
June I, 1593; and Halliwell-Phillipps says the first appearance of a 
Shakespeare play was March 3, 1592 — the play of Henry VI. But 
there are high authorities who claim that the play of Henry VI. was 
written by Marlowe ! 

Swinburne' finds that the opening lines of the second part of 
Henry VI. are aut Christophorus JSIarloive ant diaboliis. He says: 

It is inconceivable that any imitator, but one, should have had the power to 
catch the very trick of his hand, the very note of his voice, and incredible that the 
one who might would have set himself to do so; for, if this be not indeed the voice 
and this the hand of Marlowe, then what we find in these verses is not the fidelity 
of a follower but the servility of a copyist. ... He [Shakespeare] had much at 

' Sir William Vaughan, Golden Crotc, 1600. ^ Vol. xv, p. 558. ' A Study o/Shak., p. 51. 



952 CONCLUSIONS. 

starting to learn of Marlowe, and he did learn much; in his earlier plays, and, 
above all, in his earliest historic plays, the influence of the earlier poet, the echo of 
his style, the iteration of his manner, may be perpetually traced. 

The Encyclopcsdia Britajinica^ says: 

It is as nearly certain as anything can be which depends chiefly upon cumula- 
tive and collateral evidence, that the better part of what is best in the serious 
scenes of Ning Henry VI. is mainly the work of Marlowe. 

There are a group of plays which have been claimed alternately 
for both Marlowe and Shakespeare. The writings of the two men, 
at the beginning of Shakespeare's career, overlap and run into each 
other. 

The same writer in the British Encyclopaedia thinks The Con- 
tetttion between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster, now 
usually attributed to Shakespeare, was written by Marlowe. 

Halliwell-Phillipps says: 

There are a few striking coincidences of language, especially in the passage 
respecting the wild O'Neil, to be traced in Marlowe's Edivard II., and the 
Contention plays of 1594 and 1595; and also that a line from the Jew of Malta is 
found in the Third Part of Henty the Sixth, but not in the True Tragedy.'^ 

And here is another borrowed line : 

Marlowe says, in Doctor Faustus,^ speaking of Helen of Troy: 

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships. 
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium ? 

While in Shakespeare we have Troilus referring to this same 

Helen in these words : 

She is a pearl, 
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships. 
And turned crowned kings to merchants.'* 

And the genius and style exhibited in the early plays of Shake- 
speare and the later plays of Marlowe are almost identical. 

Cunningham says" of a passage in Tamburlaine,'''' Owq could 
almost fancy that it flowed from the pen of Shakespeare himself." 
Hallam * says The Jew of Malta is " more rigorously conceived, 
both as to character and circumstances, than any other Elizabethan 
play, except those of Shakespeare." Mr. Collier^ thinks that if Mar- 
lowe had written The Jew of Afalta with a little more pains, ''he 

* Vol. XV, p. 557. * Introduction to IVorks of Marloive, p. xii. 

2 Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines 0/ Life ^ I ntroduc . to Hist, nnd Lit. 0/ Europe, vol ii, 

oj" Sha/c, p. 220. p. 270. 

^ Act V, scene 4. ''Hist. Drain. Poetry, \o\. iii, 135. 

* Troilus and Cressida. ii, 2. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 953 

^ould not only have drawn a Jew fit to be matched against Sliy- 
lock, but have written a play not much inferior to The Merchant of 
Venice." Hazlitt pronounces one scene in Edward //. " cer- 
tainly superior " to a parallel scene in Shakespeare's Richard II. 
Charles Lamb said " the death scene of Marlowe's King moves pity 
and terror beyond any scene ancient or modern." And of the play 
of Doctor Faiistus the writer in the Encyclopccdia Britannica' says: 

Few masterpieces of any age, in any language, can stand beside this tragic 
poem, for the qualities of terror and splendor, for intensity of purpose and sublim- 
ity of note. 

And we have seen the critics speculating whether Marlowe, if he 
had not been prematurely cut off, in his twenty-ninth year, ivould not 
Iiave been in time as great a poet as Shakespeare ! 

As if bountiful Nature, after waiting for five thousand years to 
produce a Shakespeare, had been delivered of twins in that year of 
jgrace, 1564 ! And we are asked to believe that, if it had not been for 
Marlowe's drunken brawl, the two intellectual monster.s would have 
■existed side by side for thirty years or so, corruscating Tamhiir- 
Jaines, Lears, Doctor Faiistuses and Hamlets to the end of the chapter; 
to the infinite delight of the pyrotechnically astounded multitude, 
Avho couldn't have told the productions of one from the other. 
But it was a sad fact that one of these brilliant suns was not able to 
rise until the other had set; and unfortunate that both at last 
declined their glorious orbs into a sea of strong drink, while "the 
:god of the machine" was behind the scenes delivering immortal 
sermons in behalf of temperance. 

V. Still Other Writers. 

We are in the presence of an unbounded intellectual activity — 
a Proteus that sought as many disguises as nature itself. We see 
the appearance of the country changing: the soft earth of the forest 
begins to give place to stretches of sand and gravel; there are larger 
patches of light through the tree-tops; we hear a mighty voice 
murmuring in the distance. We are approaching the ocean. We 
are coming nearer to a great revelation. 

Mrs. Pott expresses the opinion, in a private letter,— and I have 
great confidence in her penetration and judgment, — that she sees 

■ Vol. XV, p. 557. 



954 CONCLUSIOXS. 

the signs of the Promus notes, and other Baconianisms of thought 
and expression, not only in the plays of Marlowe, but in the writings 
of Marston, Massinger, Middleton, Greene, Shirley and Webster. 
She also believes that Bacon was the author of the poems which 
appeared in that age, signed ''^Igiwto;" and that he must have helped 
to edit the great book on Ciphers published in Holland in 162J. And 
she adds: 

He must have been at the bottom of the partly fictitious works about his owm 
society of the Rosicrucians, published in Holland 1603 et scq. 

A friend calls my attention to the fact that Massinger denied the 
divine right of kings; and I have shown that one of the purposes, 
of the Shakespeare Plays was to assail this destructive superstition. 

It will be said that no man could find the time for such vast 
labors; but it must be remembered that apart from the Shakespeare 
Plays we have very little that represents the first forty years of 
Bacon's life; and the capacities of time depend on the man that 
uses them. Napoleon said chat great battles were won in the 
"quarters of hours;" and we have heard of men, like the "Learned- 
Blacksmith," who acquired a new language by giving a half hour 
every day to it for a year. Now, between 1581, when Bacon was- 
twenty, and 161 1, when his poverty terminated, there are thirty- 
years! A man like Bacon could do an immense amount of work in 
thirty years. If he dashed off a short play every two weeks, as- 
he did, we are told. The Merry JVives of Windsor, he could in that- 
time, if he had nothing else to do, produce seven hundred a/id eighty 
plays / Certainly he could have written one-eighth part of this, say 
one hundred plays; and this number would probably cover all that 
Mrs. Pott attributes to his pen; and he would still have had ample 
time left for philosophy and politics. We can imagine him, when 
his pockets grew empty, hurriedly scribbling off a farce or an after- 
piece, or a blood-and-thunder tragedy, on any subject of popular 
interest at the time, and giving it to Harry Percy to sell to some 
of the roistering playwrights, to produce as his own. The mart 
who was borrowing five dollars at a time from his brother Anthony- 
would find such a field of labor very inviting; and those who 
availed themselves of his genius would have every reason to keep 
his secret. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 955 

VI. Montaigne's Essays. 

The reader will start. What, — he will say, — is this man about 
to claim that the Englishman, Francis Bacon, wrote the greatest 
essays ever produced in France? This is midsummer madness! 

But wait a moment. Let us suppose a case. Let us suppose an 
Englishman, of a skeptical and, in some sense, irreligious turn of 
mind; a believer in God and the immortality of the soul, to be sure, 
but disgusted with the fierce and bloody religious wars of the period, 
and with the persecutions practiced by the members of the different 
Christian sects upon each other; for, in the name of the gentle 
Nazarene, they ravaged the continent of Europe and burned each 
other by hundreds at the stake. But suppose nim living in a country 
where the slightest irreligious utterance was treated as blasphemy, 
and punished with death. Now suppose that he believed that only 
skepticism could mollify the dreadful earnestness of the contending 
sectarians; and he desired therefore to plant the seeds of doubt in 
the minds of men, that they might grow, through many generations, 
and produce a harvest of gentleness, toleration and freedom of 
conscience. And suppose he wrote a series of essays with these 
objects in view, with many covert utterances that would "insin- 
uate," as Bacon said, these things into men's thoughts; that would 
enter those houses where the white mark on the door, to use Bacon's 
comparison, showed they were welcome; that would "select their 
audience " of those that could " pierce through the veil." Now sup- 
pose he — visiting France — found a friend in that country, of some 
literary taste, who was willing to father these utterances, and trans- 
late them into French, and put them forth in his own name as his 
own work. Then, you perceive, the original English essays might 
be published in England, with all their ear-marks upon them, as 
translations of the French essays; and, coming in the guise of a 
distinguished foreign work, they would not provoke that scrutiny 
which would be given to the productions of an Englishman. For 
who could blame the translator, or the publisher, if, in these 
French essays, there were expressions capable of a double mean- | 
ing? They did not make them, or the translation might not be 
correct. And who would say that England should be deprived 
of the opportunity to read great foreign works in the English 



956 CONCLUSIONS. 

tongue, because certain passages therein could be read in uifferent 
ways ? 

And liere I would first give Mrs. Pott's reasons for believing that 
Bacon wrote the Essays of Montaigne. I quote from a recent letter: 

I will try to tell you i)iy grounds of belief: 

1. Having examined " Florio's transLitioii" 1603, I find it contains all the 
metaphors, similes, etc., of Bacon's early period. No other metaphors, etc., but 
certain Proniiis notes. 

2. Having examined "Cotton's translation," published 1688, I find it io be 
very much enlarged, passages altered, paraphrased, etc., new passages introduced, 
and old opinions negatived. 

3. The metaphors and similes now include a number of Bacon's later period, 
whereas in " Florio's " there is hardly a metaphor which cannot be found in plays 
and works prior to the date of 71ie Merry Wives. In Cotton there are other forms 
introduced after Hamlet. 

4. The French original cannot be made to match with both of these transla- 
tions. If the French uses a metaphor thus: "A man should be careful how he 
repeats a tale lest he get out of the road and lose his way in the wood," Florio 
may translate it thus, but in Cotton you will find it changed to this extent, "he 
should be careful, etc., lest he lose his way and fall into the traps of his enemies." 
(I have not the books, but quote from memory.) Such alterations are frequent. 
Who made them ? How did Florio, the Ital'an master in the Duke of Bedford's 
family, get employed to translate a volume of Fre7ich essays into English? And 
how did he manage so completely to master the peculiarities of Bacon's style, that 
he could make it his own throughout the Essays? 

5. And why is it that there is, in Montaigne's letters to friends, etc., bound up 
in the same volume with the Essays, not one Baconism of thought or diction? 

As to circumstantial evidence, we may observe: 

6. That Montaigne was Mayor of Bourdeaux during the three years of Ba- 
con's sojourn in those parts, when Bacon was known to be writing and studying. 

7. Francis Bacon kept up the acquaintance which he formed with Montaigne 
by means of his brother, Anthony Bacon, 7oho is recorded to have visited Montaigne, 
from England, after Anthony's return home. Montaigne also visited Francis Bacon 

in England. I think that in the Cipher the name Montaigne will be found ren- 
dered by Mountain, a word sometimes apparently hauled in somewhat irrele- 
vantly. . . . 

Montaigne's Essays, when one comes to dissect them, are only diffuse editions 
of Bacon's mature and condensed utterances in the Essays, The Advancement of 
Learning, and other works; mixed up with observations, scientific, medical, physio- 
logical and psychical, which are noted chiefly in the Sylva. 

The object, as I take it, of his concealing the authorship of the early editions 
of this remarkable book was that he might utter, under the mask of old age and of 
French license of speech, opinions which would have been condemned as utterly 
unbecoming for a younger man, an Englishman, and of Puritan family. 

But there are other reasons: If the reader will turn to the E/i- 
/:yclflp(cdia Britannica ' he will find that Montaigne never published 
anything, except the translation into French of a Spanish work, 

1 Vol. -xvi, pp. 768, etc. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 957 

until 1580, when he was lorty-seven years of age; and that he never 

wrote anything but these Essays. It is true that a journal was 

found in the chateau of Montaigne, two liundred years after his 

death, giving an account of a journey he took, and which purported 

to be his work; but it is a vastly inferior performance to the Essays, 

"superfluous to a medical reader and disgusting to any other; " 

and his "last and best editors, MM. Courbet and Royar," do not 

accept it as "authentic." 

Like Shakspere, little can be found out about him. The Ency- 

■liojiu'dia Britainiica says: 

Not much is known of him in these latter years, and, indeed, despite the labor- 
ious researches of many biographers, of whom one, Dr. Payen, has never been 
•excelled in persevering devotion, it cannot be said that the amount of available 
information about Montaigne is large at any time of his life. 

And while the Essays are deistical, Montaigne died a devoted 
■Catholic. He had the mass served in his bed-room just before his 
•death. 

We find, on page 242 of Montaigne, a curious commentary on 

the thought that the name is nothing, kindred to Shakespeare's 

■" what's in a name ?" He says: 

Let us . . . examine upon what foundation we erect this glory and reputation, 
for which the world is turned topsy-turvy: wherein do we place this renown that 
we hunt after with so great flagrancy, and through so many impediments, and so 
much trouble? It is, in conclusion, Peter or IVilliam that carries it, takes it into his 
possession, and whom it only coiiccrns. . . . Nature has given us this passion for a 
pretty toy to play withal. And this Peter or IVilliatn, what is it but a sound when 
■all is done ? 

Now, as the French for Peter is Pierre, we have " this William 
.or Pierre that carries away this glory and takes it into his posses- 
sion;" and Wi/HaJti-Fierre comes singularly close to Williain Shakes- 

Eierre. 

And not many pages anterior to this utterance, and in the same 

chapter and train of thought, Montaigne says, on page 225: 

All other things are communicable and fall into commerce; we lend our goods 
and stake our lives for the necessity and service of our friend; but to communicate 
■a man's honor and to robe another with a man's axon glory is rarefy seen. 

But he reflects, as above, what is glory, anyhow ? William or 
Pierre takes it and carries it away, and it concerns him only. 

And remember this translation was published long after Bacon's 
death; just as we have seen editions of the Folio published in 



958 CONCL USION S. 

1632 and 1664 that agreed precisely in tlie arrangement of the type 
with that of 1623. And Mrs. Pott has shown that the translation 
does not adhere to the original; and we have a striking illustration, 
of this on page 271, where the translator (an unheard-of thing) 
actually interjects into Montaigne quotations from Ben Jonson 
not found in the original. He says: 

According to that of Mr. Jonson, which, without offense to Monsieur Montaigne, 
/ will hc7-e presume to insert ! 

And is it not a little singular to find the Italian teacher quoting" 
the play-writer Ben Jonson? 

And again on page 259 he interpolates a poem from Plutarch^ 
not in the original — an extraordinary liberty in any translator. 

And we see the author, as a young man, asserting himself on 
page 281: 

For my part I believe our souls are adult at twenty, such as they are ever like 
to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by that time given earnest 
of its force and virtue, will never after come to proof. Natural parts and excel- 
lences produce that they have of vigorous and fine, within that term, or never. 

Surely no man who had written his first book at forty-seven 
would be likely to give birth to that radical and unfounded utter- 
ance; he would be more inclined to the belief of him of old, that 
"young men think o\<\ men to be fools, but old men know young- 
men to be such." 

And we find Montaigne expressing the exact root and ground-, 
work of Bacon's philosophy in this extraordinary sentence (page 
469): 

The senses are the beginning and the end of htunan knoivledge. 

This was the very point where the philosophy of modern times 
diverged from that of antiquity: the latter turned for light to the 
operations of the human mind; the former to the facts of external 
nature, as revealed by the senses. 

In fact, in reading these Essays we see the Noviiin Orgainiiu in 
its first forms, as they presented themselves to the youthful mind 
of Bacon. Montaigne says (page 50): 

He cannot avoid owning, that the senses are the sovereig7i lords of his Iniotvledge; 
but they are uncertain and falsifiable in all circumstances. ' Tis there that he is ta 
fight it out to the last. 




feSSi^JiSJ^ 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. )S) 

The purpose of the Baconian philosophy was to found knowledge 
on the observations of the senses, after clearing the mind of its n/ff/s, 
or preconceptions and errors; and it was on this line Bacon fought 
it out to the last. 

And we have this thought of the idols also in Montaigne. He 
says (page 89): 

To say the truth, by reason that we suck it in with our milk, and that the face 
of the world presents itself in this position to our first sight, it seems as if we were 
born upon condition to pursue this practice; and the common fancies that we find 
in repute everywhere about us, and infused into our minds with the seed of our 
fathers, appear to be most universal and genuine. 

And here follows a thought that is as true to-day as it was in 
1592: 

From whence it comes to pass, that whatever is off the hinges of custom, is 
believed to be also off the hinges of reason. 

Bacon writes a speculative work, entitled T/w New Atlantis, and 
in another place he discusses the probability of the truth of Plato's 
story; and Montaigne (page 166) refers to the destruction of At- 
lantis^ and speculates at length whether or not the West Indies 
could be part of the ancient island. 

And we see the spirit of Bacon's subtle and paradoxical C/iarac- 
ters of a Believing Christian in the following utterance of Montaigne 
(page 417): 

To meet with an incredible thing is an occasion to a Christian to believe, 
and it is so much the more according to reason, by how much it is against human 
reason. 

And Bacon says: 

A Christian is one that believes things his reason cannot coinprehend.' 

And when we remember that Bacon did not dare to publish these 
Faradoxes during his life-time, we can see why the same thoughts, 
more fully elaborated, were put forth in the name of a foreigner, 
for I have no doubt the Paradoxes as well as the Montaigne Essays 
were the work of Bacon's unbelieving youth. 

And here we have a thought worthy of Bacon's finest and highest 

inspiration. Speaking of life, Montaigne says (p. 442): 

For why do we from this instant derive the title of being, tohich is but a flasli 
in the infinite course of an eternal niglit? 

1 Characters of a Believing Christian. 



960 



CONCL USIONS. 



I regret that I have not space to quote the thousands of magnifi- 
cent and profound and Baconian thoughts that throng the pages 
of these Essays. It is a veritable mine of gems. 

And the very thought of Bacon that the senses were the holes 
which communicated with the locked-up spirit, and that if we had 
more holes through matter, more senses, we would apprehend 
things in nature now hidden from us, appears in Montaigne. He 
says (pages 479-499): 

Who knows whether to us also one, two or three, or many other senses may not 
be wanting? . . . Let an understanding man imagine human nature originally pro- 
duced without the sense of hearing, and consider what ignorance and trouble such 
a defect would bring upon him, what a darkness and blindness in the soul; he will 
then see by that, of how great importance to the knowledge of truth the privation 
of another such sense, or of two or three, should we be so deprived, would be. 
.... Who knows whether all human kind commit not the like absurdity, for want 
of some sense, and that through this default the greater part of the face of things is 
concealed from us ? 

And in the above quotation we see the embryo of the thought 
expressed by Shakespeare: 

There is no darkness but ignorance. 

In short, we are brought face to face with this dilemma: either 
Francis Bacon wrote the Essays of Montaigne, or Francis Bacon 
stole a great many of his noblest thoughts, and the whole scheme 
of his philosophy, from Montaigne. But Bacon was a complete 
man; he expanded into a hundred fields of mental labor. Montaigne 
did nothing of any consequence to the world but publish these 
Essays; ergo: the great thoughts came not from Montaigne to 
Bacon, but from Bacon to Montaigne. 

And the writer of Montaigne was a poet. He says (page 78): 

I am one of those who are most sensible to the power of the imagination; 
every one is justled, and some are overthrown by it. It has a very great impress- 
ion upon me; and I make it my business to avoid wanting force to resist it. 

And again he says (page 100): 

The poetic raptures and those prodigious flights of fancy that ravish and trans- 
port the author out of himself, why should we not attribute them to his good for- 
tune, since the poet himself confesses they exceed his sufficiency and force, and 
acknowledges them to proceed from something else than himself? 

Here we have the same thought expressed by Bacon, as to 
divine influences in his work, and are reminded of his chaplain's 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACO.V. f,6r 

Statement that he got his thoughts from something within him^ 
apart from himself. 

And he says (page 536), speaking of "poesy": "I love it in- 
finitely.'" 

And on page 142 he says: 

I would have things so exceed and wholly possess the imagination of him that 
hears that he should have something else to do than to think of words. 

Here we are reminded of Hamlet's contempt for "words, words^ 
words." 

And Montaigne had also the dramatic instinct. He says (page 

597): 

How oft have I, as I passed along the streets, had a good mind to write a farce ^ 
to revenge the poor boys whom I have seen flayed, knocked down, and miserably 
abused by some father or mother. 

t And the profound admiration of Julius Caesar, which we have 

seen in Bacon and Shakespeare, reappears in Montaigne. He says 

(page 612): 

This sole vice (ambition) spoiled in him the most rich and beautiful nature that 
ever was. 

This is precisely the thought of Bacon, who calls Julius Caesar 

The most excellent spirit (his ambition reserved) of the world.' 

Montaigne continues (page 610): 

In earnest it troubles me when I consider the greatness of the man. 

Here we see Bacon's intellect striving to match itself with that 
of "the foremost man of all this world." And we see in Mon- 
taigne the original of another thought which is found in Shake- 
speare. Cassius says in reference to Caesar: 

And that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books. 

Montaigne says (page 615): 

His [Cffisar's] military eloquence was in his own time so highly reputed, that 
many of his army writ down his harangues as he spoke them, by which means 
there were volumes of them collected, that continued a long time after him. 

And we see in Montaigne another curious conception which 

appears in Shakespeare. Mark Antony moves the mob of Rome 

with the exhibition of the dead Caesar's robe: 

^Advancement 0/ Learning, book ii. 



^52 CONCLUSIONS. 

You all do know this mantle; I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on. . . . 
Look in this place ran Cassius' dagger through; 
See what a rent the envious Casca made; 
Through this, etc. 

And Montaigne says. 

The sight of Caesar's robe troubled all Rome, which was more than his death 
had done. 

And in the Montaigne Essavs we seem to see sundry references 
to William Shakspere. He says (page 655): 

How should I hate the reputation of being a pretty fellow at writing, and an 
ass and a sot in everything else. . . . Or do learned writings proceed from a man of 
so weak conversation ? Who talks at a very ordinary rate and ivrites rarely: is to 
say that Iiis capacitv is hoyro7i<cd and net his ore//. A learned man is not learned 
in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient t/iroiii;-hoiit, even to ignorance 
itself. 

And we might even infer that there was a suspicion in Mon- 
taigne's own neighborhood that he could not have written the 
Essays. He says (page 672): 

In my country of Gascony they look upon it as a drollery to see me in print. 
The farther off I am read from my own home the better I am esteemed. I am 
fain to purchase printers in Guienne; elsewhere they purchase me. 

And when we come to identities of thought and expression I 
could till a book as large as this with extracts that are perfectly 
paralleled in Bacon's acknowledged writings and in the Shakespeare 
Plays. Let me give a few instances, not perhaps the strongest, but 
those that first occur to me. 

Montaigne says, speaking of death; 

Give place to others, as others have gi^^en place to yoii^ 

Bacon says: 

And as others have given place to its, so must lae in the end give place to otiiers} 

This is not parallelism; it is identity. 

That strange word eternizing, found both in Bacon and Shake- 
speare, and applied to making a man's memory perpetual on earth, 
(a very significant thought in connection with the man who com- 
posed the Cipher), is found in Montaigne (page 129), used with the 
same meaning, " the eternizing of our names." 

1 Montaigne's Essays, Ward, Locke & Tyler's ed., p. 75. "Essay Of Death . 



O THER MA SKS OF FRA NCIS BA CON. 05- 

And here is a striking parallelism: Hamlet tells his mother: 

Leave wringing of your hattds, peace, sit you down. 
And let me luj-mg your heart. 

Montaigne says (page 635): 

And provided the courage be undaunted, and the expressions not sounding of 
despair, let her be satisfied What makes matter for the 7oringing of our hands, if 
ive do not wring our thoughts. 

Montaigne says: 

For pedants plunder knowledge from books, and carry it on the tip of their 
lips, just as birds carry seeds wherewith to feed their young. 

And in Shakespeare we have, applied to a pedant: 

He has been at a feast of learning and stolen the scraps. 

Montaigne says (page 296): 

Death comes all to one, whether a man gives himself his end or stays to receive 
it of some other means; whether he pays before his day, or stays till his day of pa)"- 
vient conies. 

And in Shakespeare we have the following, just before the battle 
of Shrewsbury: 

Falstaff. I would it were bed-time, Hal, and all well. 
Prince. Why, thou owest Heaven a death. 

Falstaff. 'Tis not due yet; I would be loth to pay him Oejore his day. What 
need I be so forward with him that calls not on me?^ 

Speaking of the grave, Montaigne says of the dead: 

But they are none of them come back to tell us the news. 

This is the embryo of Hamlet's reference to the grave as 

That undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveler returns. 

Montaigne speaks of the stars as " the eternal light of those 

tapers that roll over his head;" while Shakespeare has: 

Night's candles are burned out. 

Montaigne says (page 884): 

I, who but ^;vz7i'/ upon the earth. 

Shakespeare says: 

Crawling between earth and heaven.' 
Montaigne says: 

The heart and life of a great and triumphant emperor is the breakfast of a little, 
contemptible worm. ^ 

' jst Henry IV., v, i. - Hamlet, iii. i. 



964 CONCL USi ONS. 

In Hamlet we have: 

KiJig. At supper? Where ? 

Hamlet. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten; 
A certain convocation of tvorms are e'en at him. 
Your ivorvi is your only empejvr for diet. 

Montaigne says: 

To what a degree, then, does this ridiculous diversion molest the soul, when air 
her facilities shall be sumniotied Xogeihex upon this trivial account. 

And Shakspeare says in the sonnets: 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
I suiniuoii up remembrance of things past. 

We are all familiar with that curious expression in Hamlet's 

soliloquy: 

When he himself may his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin; 

and some have wondered why a man should discard daggers and 
swords and assassinate himself with a bodkin. We turn to Mon- 
taigne and find, I think, the original of the thought. He says 
(page 217): 

A maid in Picardy, to manifest the ardor of her constancy, gave herself, with 
a bodkin she wore in her hair, four or five good lusty stabs into the arm, till the 
blood gushed out to some purpose. 

Shakespeare speaks in Richard III. of ''the bo7vels of the. land;'' 
Montaigne (page 94) speaks of "///<' bowels of a mans own country.''' 
Both used those strange words graveled and quintessence. Mor- 
taigne despised the mob. He speaks like Bacon and Shakespeare 
of " the brutality and facility natural to the common people." 

We find Shakespeare speaking of God thus: 

O thou eternal mover of the heavens. 

And we find in Montaigne these lines (page 47): 

Th' eternal mover has, in shades of night. 
Future events concealed from human sight. 

Montaigne says (page 227): 

We commend a horsQ for his strength and sureness of foot, . . . and not for 
his rich caparisons; a greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk 
for her wings, not for her gesses and bells. Why in like manner do we not value a 
j/ian for what is properly his own? He has«a great train, a beautiful place, so- 
much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and all these are about him, but not 
in him. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 965 

In Shakespeare we have the same thought thus expressed: 

And not a man for being simply man 
Hath any honor; but honor for those honors 
• That are withotit him, 2.% place, riches and favor. 

Prizes of accident as oft as merit.' 

I assure the reader that I have to stay my hand, — out of respect 
for my publishers, —or I should fill pages with similar proofs and 
parallelisms. 

VII. "The Anatomy ok Mel.\ncholv." 

I cannot do more than touch upon a few of the reasons that lead 
me to believe that Francis Bacon was the real author of The Anatomy 
of Melancholy, which was published in 1621, in the name of " Robert 
Burton, of Leicestershire." Mr. Wharton says: " It was written, as 
I conjecture, about the year 1600." It first appeared under a nam 
de plume, that of ''■Democritus Junior ^ Whtn it was first attributed 
to Burton I do not know. Burton, like Montaigne, never wrote 
anything but this one production; and, like Montaigne and Shak- 
spere, very little is known of his life. His will, written by himself, 
is a crude performance, and has no resemblance to the style of the 
Anatomy. His elder brother, William Burton, was a student at the 
Inner Temple in 1593, and afterwards a barrister and reporter 
at the Court of Common Pleas, London. It is very probable 
he was an acquaintance of Francis Bacon, being in the same 
pursuit, in the same town, at the very time the Plays were being 
written. 

The Anatomy of Melancholy is a wonderful work: — wonderful for 
its learning, its vast array of quotations from the classical writings, 
in which it resembles the Montaigne Essays, the profundity of its 
thoughts, its originality, and its Baconianisms. ' Dr. Johnson said 
it was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours 
sooner than he wished to rise. We might infer that the Montaigne 
Essays were the production of a sensitive, buoyant, jubilant, happy, 
vivacious, youthful genius; the Anatomy, the work of the same 
mind, older, overwhelmed with misfortunes, an'i steeped to the 
lips in misery and gloom. The one represents the man who wrote 
The Two Gentlemen of Vero?ia and Lo2>e's Labor Lost; the other, the 

' Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. 



966 CONCL USIONS. 

author of Tiiiion of Athens and Hatnlet. In fact, in many things it 
is a prose Timon of Athens. 

We have seen that about 1600 Bacon's fortunes were at their 
blackest; his disgust with the world was absolute; he was sick, 
poor, without hope, and plunged into excessive melancholy. He 
himself refers, subsequently, to this dreadful period in his life, and 
to the consequent failure of his health. We are told that the 
author of the Anatomy wrote that work to overcome his despair and 
divert his mind from its sorrows. We can imagine the laborious 
Francis Bacon, with the same purpose, with the help of his "good 
pens," collating a vast commonplace-book on the subject of "Mel- 
ancholy," and the best modes of medical treatment to relieve it; 
and this is just what the Anatomy is: it is a commonplace-book 
with the citations strung together by a thread of original re- 
flection; and it is full of identities with the writings of Bacon. 
Let me give one instance, which is most striking. 

Coffee, at the time the Anatomy was published, had not yet been 
introduced into England; the first coffee-house was opened in Eng- 
land, in Oxford, in 165 1, by a Jew; and the second in London, by a 
Greek servant of a Turkey merchant, in 1652. Bacon, we know, 
.was collecting the facts for his Natural Histojy for years; Montagu 
says some of them were drawn from observations made when he 
was sixteen years of age; and as one of the curious facts, in that 
compendium of facts, we find this entry: 

They have in Turkey a drink called coffa, made of a berry of the same name, 
as black as soot, and of a strong scent, but not aromatical; which they take, 
beaten into powder, in water, as hot as they can drink it, and sit at it, in their 
coffa-houses, which are like our taverns. This drink comforteth the heart and 
brain, and helpeth digestion.' 

We turn to Burton, and we find him saying: 

The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), so named of a berry 
as black as soot, and as bitter, (like that black drink which was in use among the 
Lacedamonians, and perhaps the same), which they sip still of and sup as warm as 
they can suffer; they spend much time in those coffee-houses, which are somewhat 
like our ale-houses or taverns, and there they sit chatting and drinking to drive 
away the time, and to be merry together, because they find by experience that 
that kind of drink, so used, helpetJt digestion and procureth alacrity.'^ 

I italicise the woids used by Bacon which are also used by Bur- 
ton. Bacon's Natiual History was not published until 1627, so that 

' Sylva Syt7'aru!ti, cent, viii, § 738. ^Anatomy 0/ Melancholy, V( 1. ii, p. 398. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACOX. 967 

Burton could not have borrowed from it, and it is not probable 
that Bacon would have borrowed from Burton without giving him 
due credit therefor. And 3'et we find both writers treating of the 
lame subject, in the same language, with the same ideas, and even 
falling into the same error, that is, to say that the coffee berry is 
"as black as soot." 

On page 129 of Volume I., Burton refers to details which show 
the writer to have been intimately acquainted with old Verulam,, 
in which St. Albans was situated, and with its antiquities. 

B. Atwater of old, or, as some will, Henry I., made a channel from Trent to 
Lincoln, navigable; which now, saith Mr. Camden, is decayed, and much mention 
is made of anchors, and such like monuments, found about old Verulamium. 

And at the bottom of the page, as a foot-note to this passage, 
we have this curious and inexplicable remark: 

Near S. Albans, which must not now be whispered in the ear. 

One would almost suspect that the name of St. Albaiis was 
dragged in, in this singular fashion, to meet the requirements of a 
cipher narrative; and there are many other things in the Anatotuy 
which point in the same direction. Certain it is that the finding of 
ancient anchors, in the meadows of Old Verulam, would be much 
more likely to be known to Bacon, who was raised there and had,, 
as a boy, rambled all over those fields, than to Burton, born at 
Lindley, in Leicestershire, and whose residence, nearly all his life, 
seems to have been at Oxford. But, in any event, why was not 
the name of St. Albans to be " whispered in the ear " ? 

Burton avows the singular belief that England was formerly 
more densely populated than it was in his time in the seventeenth 
century; and in the year 1607 Bacon, in a speech in Parliament, ex- 
pressed the same unusual conviction.' 

We turn to another remarkable evidence of identity. 

It is well known that Bacon wrote a work called The New At- 
lantis. It was an attempt to represent an Utopia. It was published 
in 1627. The name was a singular one for such a purpose. The 
island of Atlantis, Plato tells us, was sunk in the ocean because of 
the iniquities of its people. Why, then, employ a new Atlantis to 
show the human race regenerated ? But this was Bacon's fancy. 

» Works, vol. V, p. 352. 



968 CONCLUSIONS. 

An:l, strange to say, we find Robert Burton in The Auatoiny of Mel- 
ancholy falling into the same fancy, and declaring in 1600, or 1621: 

I will yet, to satisfy and please myself, make an Utopia of mine own, a 7ie'ii< 
Atlantis, a poetical commonwealth of mine own, in which I will freely domineer, 
build cities, make laws, statutes, as I list myself. And why may I not?' 

And then he proceeds through some dozen pages to work out 
his fable, very much as Bacon did in The New Atlantis, but not, of 
course, as completely or philosophically; and evidently the New At- 
lantis of Burton is but the rude sketch of The New Atla7itis of Bacon. 
Says Burton: 

I will have certain ships sent out for new discoveries every yea."' ... to ob- 
serve what artificial inventions and good laws are in other countries.^ 

While Bacon ^ details how, under the orders of the ancient King 
Solomono, two ships were sent out every twelve years, from his New 
Atlantis, to visit all parts of the earth, and acquire new knowledge 
as to science, arts, manufactures and inventions. 

Burton has his officers all paid out of the public treasury, " no 
fees to be given or taken on pain of losing their places; " while 
Bacon represents the officials of his New Atlantis as refusing any 
fees, with the exclamation, "What, twice-paid !" 

Burton says that in his Utopia 

He that invents anything for public good, in any art or science, writes a treat- 
ise, or performs any noble exploit, shall be aecorditigly enriched, honored and pre- 
ferred. 

While Bacon describes^ the great galleries of his Utopia filled 
with " the statues of all principal inventors," including Columbus, 
the monk that made gunpowder, the inventors of music, of letters, 
of silk, etc. He adds: 

For upon every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give 
him a liberal and honorable reivard. 

In short, we see the seeds of Bacon's Ne7v Atlantis in Burton's 
New Atlantis; and no one can doubt that they came ou't of the same 
mind. 

And I could fill pages, did space permit, with the startling iden- 
tities of speech and thought which I have found to exist between 

- Anatomy o/ Melancholy, vol. i, p. 131. ^ The New Atlantis, vol. i, p. 262, Montagu's ed. 

^ Page 137. ' * Ibid., vol. i, p. 209. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS BACON. 



969 



the Anatomy and Bacon's acknowledged writings and the Shake- 
speare Plays. 

And in the Anatomy we see the vastness of those medical studies 
which crop out in the Shakespeare Plays. 

Indeed, the world will hereafter have to study the great Plays 
by the wondrous light of the i^j-^vn'^- of Montaigne and The Anatomy 
of Melancholy of Burton. Here is the man himself revealed, in 
youth and maturity. We see here the profound learning, the in- 
exliaustible industry, the scope and grasp of mind, which have 
glinted through the interstices of the Plays like the red light of the 
dawning sun through the tangled leaves of a forest. We see, in 
short, the tremendous preparations of that wondrously stored mind, 
whose very drippings have astounded mankind in the disguise of 
the untaught player of Stratford. 

VIII. The Cipher. 

And, incredible as it may seem, I think it will be found that 

Bacon put the stamp of his Cipher upon nearly all his works, 

with intent some day to have them all reclaimed. And why do I 

say this ? Because nearly everywhere I find not only the words 

£acon, and St. Albans, and Francis, and Nicholas, and Shake, and 

spur and specre, scattered over these unacknowledged works, but 

because I can see those curious twistings of the sentences 

which so puzzled commentators in the Plays, and which mark 

the strain to bring in the Cipher narrative. The discussion of 

this matter would fill a book; I can now but touch upon a few 

proofs. 

Take the Marlowe plays. Some of them exist, like some of the 

Shakespeare Plays, in two forms: a brief form, and a larger form. 

I found in the Doctor Faustus"^ that, when the Doctor is demanding 

some exhibition of demoniacal power, Cornelius says: 

Then haste thee to some solitary grove 
And bear wise Bacon s and Albanus' works, 
The Hebrew Psalter and New Testament, 
And whatsoever else is requisite. 

Here we have not only the name of Bacon, but Albanus. The latter 
word the comrrtentators changed to Albcrtus, and says one critic: 

•Act i, scene 2. 



9 7 o CONCL USIONS. 

Cornelius saddled Faustus with a heavy burden; the works of Albertus Magnus 
fill twenty-one thick folios, and those of Roger Bacon are asserted to have beea 
one hundred and one in number. 

It is evident that the order of Cornelius to bring along this 
vast library was merely an excuse to drag in the significant 
cipher words. 

And again the name of Bacon appears in the same play: 

I am Gluttony; my parents are all dead, and the devil a penny they have left 
me but a small pension; and that buys me thirty meals a day and ten bevers; a 
small trifle to suffice nature. I come of a royal pedigree; my father was a Ganunon 
of Bacon, and my mother was a hogshead of claret wine.' 

This is the same old ^'^Gajniiion of Bacon" which the carrier 
had in his panniers, and .which did such good service, in is( 
Henry f V. ^ 

And in The Jew of Malta Barabas and Ithamore are about to 
strangle a friar. Ithamore says: 

Oh, how I long to see him shake his heels. ^ 

And when they have strangled the friar Ithamore says: 

' Tis neatly done, here's wo print at all. . . . Nay, master, be ruled by me a 
little {stands up the body); so let him lean upon his staff; excellent, he stands as if 
he were begging of Bacon. 

The great artist had not yet acquired the cunning in handling 
his suspicious words which is shown in the Plays. All this is very 
forced: ^'■shake his heels," '* here's no print at all," " as if begging of 
Bacon." 

It seems to me these two plays go together in the cipher 
work, and we have spheres in Doctor Faustus matching this shake in 
The Jew of Malta. In DiJo, Queen of Carthage, I find allusions to 
Elizabeth, Burleigh, etc. And in all these plays there is a great deal 
about Aristotle, and the Organon, and books, and libraries, a.n6. printing 
and /^^/y; and the singular word (^/^;-;«'2c^ appears in almost every 
one of the Marlowe plays, just as we have found it in the Shake- 
speare Plays, Montaigne's Essays, and The Anatomy of Melancholy; 
as if, in every one of them, Bacon, in the internal cipher story,, 
was repeating his purpose to do that which, in one of his acknowl- 
edged masks, he advised the King to do, to-wit: to eternize hisr 
name on earth. 

' Doctor Faustus, ii, 2. » Act ii, scene i. ' Act iv, scene 2. 



OTHER MASKS OF FA'AXCIS BACOX. 971 

And in Montaigne's Essays we have (piige 878): 

Whoever shall cure a child of an obstinate aversion to brown bread, bacott or 
garlic, will cure him of all kind of delicacy. 

The substance bacon vi^as considered in that age a diet fit for 
nobles; — the peasants could not get enough of it. Why should a 
child have an aversion for it? It is all forced. 

And the text of Montaigne is in some places fairly peppered 
with the words Francis and Francisco. On page 42 we have " King 
Francis the First," on the next line, "v^/7?w/jv^ Taverna, the ambas- 
sador oi Francisco Sforza;" in the next sentence, "■ VAn^ Francis'^ 
again; on the same page '' Si^^nor Francisco;" on the next page 
"King i^m//r/j-," and on the next line " King i^n/z/tv^ " iigain. On 
page 46 we have: "Which makes the example of Francis, Marquis 
of Saluzzo, who, being lieutenant to King Francis the First," etc. 
On page 44 we have " King Francis" again. And we h^.■s!& Nicholas, 
William, Williams, shake, and spur and spcare xwAny times repeated; 
together with a great many allusions to England and Scotland, Mary 
Queen of Scots (page 61), the Duke of Suffolk, the F/tf^lish, the JVhite 
Rose, King Henry the Se%'cnth of England (page 36), Bullcn; all of 
which seem rather out of place in a French work not a history of 
or dealing with English affairs. And there is a great deal also in 
the text diOowlt plays, players, actors, tragedies, cotnedies, etc. And 
we find the most absurd sentences dragged into the text to meet,, 
as I suppose, the requirements of a cipher story. Take for in- 
stance this sentence (page 31): 

What causes the misadventures that befall us do we not invent? . . . Those 
beautiful tresses, young lady, you may so liberally tear off, are in no way guilty, 
nor is it the whiteness of those delicate breasts you so unmercifully beat, that with 
an unlucky bullet has slain your beloved brother. 

Who is the young lady ? There is nothing more about her in 
the text. And is it the white breasts that have slain her brother ? 
Or did the young lady slay him? And where did the bullet come 
from? Was it from the white breasts? It is all n(jnsense and has 
no connection with the text. And there are hundreds of such 
passages. 

And Montaigne ends one of his chapters with this singular dec- 
laration (page 37): 



^12 COA^CLUSIONS. 

For my part I shall take care, if I can, that my death discover nothing that my 
life has not first openly manifested and publicly declared. 

I think Mrs. Pott is right in supposing tliat Montaigne is often 
referred to in the Cipher story in the Shakespeare Plays in the 
name oi Alountaiiie ; for instance, we find Pistol in The Merry Wives 
calling Evans " thou yI/w////r?/V/r forreyner;" and in the same play 
Falstaff alludes to himself as "a mouiitaiiie of mummy." And 
both of these Mouiitaiiics or Montaigties are cunningly accompanied 
by the de and hi, making the de la Montaigne. It would puzzle a 
simple-minded man to know how Bacon, in an English play, could 
work in twice the French words de la. But this is how he does it: 
He has a French doctor in the play, Dr. Cains, and his broken 
English furnishes the de. In act i, scene 4, we have the Doctor ex- 
claiming: 

What shall de honest man do in my closet? 

And a few lines above this we have: 

Diable, Diable, vat is in my closet? 
Villanie Z<7-roone: Rugby my rapier. 

These adroit subtleties provide for the first Mountaine. The 
•other is as follows. In the same scene, a few lines further along, 

we have: 

1 will cut his throat in de park. 

And in the first scene of the first act we have Shallow indulging 
in the old-woman phrase: 

I thank you always with my heart, la. 

And in the next column we have " thou Mountaine forreyner." 
And when we turn to the play of 2d Henry IV. we again 
have Dc la Mountaine still more cunningly concealed, for there is 
no Frenchman in that play to change the into de. In act ii, scene 4, 
we have: "The weight of an hair will not turn the scales be- 
tween the Haber-^^-pois." Here we have the de; and in the same 
act, scene i, we find Dame Quickly saying: 

Prithee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles, I loath to pawne my plate, in 
good earnest, la. 

And we turn to the next act, scene V, and on the next page 

after that on which the de is found we have: 

And see the revolution of the times 
Make .Mouniaiiics level. 



OTHER MASKS OF FRANCIS FiACON. 973 

De and la are very unusual in English plays, in fact they are 
not English words; yet here we find them accompanying, in three 
instances, the word Mountaim- ; and the probabilities are that inves- 
tigation will show this singular concordance to exist in some of the 
other plays. 

And, it seems to me, we have repeated references to The Anat- 
omy of Melancholy in the Cipher story of the Shakespeare Plays. 
In Romeo and Juliet we have: 

What vile part of this anatomy} 
And again: 

Melancholy bells.'' 
In the Comedy of Errors we have: 

A mere anatomy, a mountebank." 
And again: 

But moody and dull mclanclioly} 
Here both words are in the same act and scene. 
In King John the words occur in the same act, separated in the 
Folio by only about one column of matter: 
From sleep that fell anatomy} 
Or if that surly spirit Mrlanc/ioly} 
In Twelfth Night we have, separated by a page only: 
I'll eat the rest of the anatomy? 
Being addicted to melanclioly* 
In 1st and 2d Henry IV. we seem to have the name of the book 
and the ostensible author, Robert Burton: 

Master Robert Shallow.' 
North from Burton here.'" 
And in 2d Henry IV., v, 4, we have: 
Thou atomy thou. 

This needs but an an to make it anatomy. 
And we also have: 

Musing and^ursed melanc/ioly.^^ 

. Rcneo and Juliet, iii. 3. ' KiH.,John, iii. 3. l'"^ "f,'"'^ ^K 7ii''. 

, Thid iv / ' Ibid., iii, 2. '• i^t ff^"^y ^'^- '"• ■• 

. Cotldy :/ Errors, v, x. ' 7W//M Nt.kt. iii, .. - fst Henry IV. n, 3. 

4Ibid.,V, 1. SIbid., I.. 5. 



974 CONCL USIONS. 

And in the Induction to the Taming of the Shrewwe have: 
Old Sly's son of Bu!-to7t-hea.ih. 

In conclusion, I would say, we find Bacon once in T/ic Meny 

Wives of Windsor ; we find Bacon twice in the first part of King 

Henry I J'.; we find Bacons once in the same play; we find Bacon in 

The Jew of Malta ; and we find Bacon twice in the play of Djctor 

Faustus. In Thomas Lord Cronnvcll we have: 

Well, Joan, he'll come this way; and by God's dickers I'll tell him roundly of 
it, an if he were ten lords; a shall know that I had not my cheese and my Bacon 
for nothing." ' 

We find Bacon in Montaigne's Essays; and we find Bacon many 
times repeated in The Anatomy of Melancholx. 

We find St. Albans twenty odd times in the Shakespeare Plays; 
we find St. Albans two or three times in the Contention between York 
and Lancaster; we find St. Albans in the play of Tom Stuckley; we 
find Alhanus in Doctor Faustus and Albanum in Locrine; and we find 
.5*/. Albans in The Anatomy of Alelancholv. 

Can any one believe that all this is the result of accident ? Re- 
merAber that bacon, in its common acceptation, is a word having no 
relation to poetry or elevated literature; and St. Albans is a little 
village, illustrious only through having been at one time the place 
of residence of Francis Bacon. I do not think a study of the 
dramas or poems of the next century, or of the present age, will 
reveal any such liberal use of these words; in fact, I doubt if they 
can be found therein at all, except where Francis Bacon and his 
residence are distinctly referred to. 

' Act iv, scene 2. 



CHAPTER V. 

F/^.LVC/S BACON. 

He was not born to shame ! 
Upon his brow sha:Tie i.; ashamed to sit; 
For 'tis a throne where honor may be crowned. 
Sole monarch of the universal earth. 

Romi'o and Juliet^ iii\ 2 



LET us consider, as briefly as the importance of the subject will 
-^ permit, some of the assaults which have been made upon the- 
good name of Francis Bacon. 

I. His Life as a Courtikr. 

First, it has been charged, with much bitterness, that he was a 
courtier, truckling to power — an obsequious sycoohant to the 
crown. 

It is sufficient answer to this to refer to the fact that, as a 
member of ParHament, he stood forth, in the face of Queen Eliza- 
beth and all her power, and spoke in defense of the rights of the 
House of Commons and the people; and that, although this act 
injured seriously his chances of promotion, 1 e resolutely refused to 
recant a single sentiment of the views he had enunciated. It is 
something in this age, when power is divided among many hands, 
for the ambitious man to defy the frown of authority; but in that 
era, when all power rested in the crown, opposition to the govern- 
ment was political suicide. There was no public opinion outside 
of the court; there were no newspapers; and Parliament itself was, 
as a rule, the creature of the royal will. Surely no man who was 
a mere truckler for place would thus have arrayed himself against 
the powers of the state; or. if he had unwittingly stumbled into such 
a position of antagonism, he would have hastened to repair the 
damage by proper and profuse apologies and recantations. 

It is true Bacon was ambitious, and he was a courtier because 

9/j 



9^6 CONCLUSIONS. 

he was ambitious. There was no other avenue to preferment. He!- 
had to seek the favor of the court or sink into absolute nothingness,, 
so far as position in the state was concerned. 

He says: 

Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care- 
of the commonwealth as a kind of common property, which, like the air and 
water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might 
be best served, and what service I was myself best fatted by nature to perform.' 

And again he saj^s: 

But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts,, 
(though God accept them), yet towards man are little better than good dreams, 
except they be put in act; a7id that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage- 
and commanding ground. •' 

These two utterances constitute, I think, the very key-note to^ 
Bacon's whole public career. He sought place as the vantage- 
ground from which to benefit mankind. He knew how little respect 
there is for genius in rags. He says: 

The learned pate 
Ducks to the golden fool. All is oblique; 
There's nothing level in our cursed natures 
But direct villainy.' 

He had noted that 

A dog's obeyed in office.* , 

And who shall say he was wrong ? Who shall say how far the- 
title of Lord Verulam, or Viscount St. Albans, has cast a halo of 
dignity and acceptability over his philosophy? It is too often the 
position that commends the utterance. The horn of the hunter, 
ringing far and wide from the mountain top, reaches an audience 
which the same note, muffled in the thick depths of the valley, could 
not obtain. And if this be true in the enlarged, capacious and 
cultivated age of to-day, how much more must it have been the: 
case in that wretched era, when, as Bacon said: 

Courts are but only superficial schools 

To dandle fools; 
The rural parts are turned into a den 
Of savage men. 

And remember mankind had not receded to these conditions;; 

1 Proem Int. Nat. ' Titus Andronicus, iv, 3. 

« Essay Of Great Place. * Lear,iv,6. 



FRANCIS BACON. 



977 



it had advanced to them. The people of Western Europe were just 
emerging from the most profound brutality and barbarism. The 
courts were the only centers of light and culture. Was it a crime 
for the greatest intellect of the age to adapt itself to its pitiful 
environment ? 

So our virtues 
Lie in the interpretation i f the times.' 

Was it an offense for the ablest man of the age to seek place as 
a stepping-stone to the opportunity for good ? "The times were 
out of joint," and he believed he was bcrn to "set them right;" and 
he craved power as the Archimedes fulcrum from which he was to- 
move the world. 

Moreover, he was poor — poor with many wants — a gentleman 
with the income of a yeoman. The path to fortune as well as 
power lay through the portals of the court. Can he be blamed for 
treading it? 

II. His Alleged Ingratitude to Essex. 

But it is urged that Bacon was ungrateful to Essex. Wherein ? 
Why, — it is said, — Essex gave him a piece of land worth about 
^i,8oo, and Bacon afterwards took part in his prosecution for 
treason. 

Why did Essex give this land ? Because he was under many 
obligations to Bacon and his brother Anthony, for years of faithful, 
patient and valuable services, not only as political allies, but as 
secretaries, laboring to advance his fortunes. Bacon had written 
masks for his entertainments; he had written sonnets in his name, 
to advance his interests with the Queen; he had popularized him in 
the Plays; he had penned letters as if from himself to aid his for- 
tunes; he had carried on his correspondence witli all parts of Europe; 
he had translated his ciphers; he had been his guide in politics; he 
had used all his vast genius and industry for his advancement. 
Bacon said in a letter, in 1600, to Lord Henry Howard,— Essex 
being still alive: 

For my Lord cf Esse.x, I am not servile to him, having regard to my superior 
duty. I have been much bound unto him; on the other side, / have spent more time- 
and more thoughts about his 'Mil-doing than ever I did about mine 07on. 

1 Coriotanus, iv, 7. 



978 



CONCL USIONS. 



Essex had tried, in return for these services, to secure Bacon the 
place of Solicitor, and had failed. Then he came to him and said: 

You have spent your time and thoughts in my matters; I die if I do not soinc- 
what louuirds your foiiiinc. 

That is to say, he could not live under the sense of this unre- 
quited obligation. The Twickenham property was not a gift; it was 
the payment of a debt. 

But Bacon knew the rash and uncontrolable nature of his 
patron, and he accepted the property with a distinct intimation, 
at the time, that he should not follow him into any reckless enter- 
prises. He said to him, as he himself records, in his "Apology": 

My Lord, I see I must be your homager, and hold land of your gift; but do you 
know the manner of doing homage in law ? Always it is with a saving of his faith 
to the King and his other lords. 

That is to say, his devotion as a friend must be limited by his 
obligations and duties as a citizen. 

Was this wrong ? Should he, because of a gift of a piece of land, 
have followed the Earl into the foolish and treasonable practices 
which culminated on the scaffold ? It is true that " a friend should 
bear a friend's infirmities;" but should he therefore participate in 
his crimes ? 

And though it be admitted that Bacon had been engaged in a 
conspiracy with Essex, in 1597, to create public opinion against 
the Cecils, and even, perhaps, to bring about the deposition of the 
Queen, by profound and far-reaching means, — does it therefore fol- 
low that he should have gone with the Earl in his wild and unrea- 
sonable attempt to raise the city and seize the person of the Queen ? 
There are few things more utterly abominable than the man who, 
with talents hardly up to the requirements of private life, insists 
on rushing into the management of great public affairs, and is 
caught at last, like Essex, molten with terror, " betwi.xt the dread 
extremes of mighty opposites." And one has but to look at the 
picture of the unpleasant face of Essex, given herewith, to see that 
he was a commonplace, vulgar soul, made great by the accident of 
birth. Surely, that portrait does not represent the man for whom 
the greatest intellect of the human race should have died on the 
scaffold. 



\ 



FRANCIS BACOX. gyg 

And the course of Essex, after he was convicted of treason, and 
just before his execution, shows the real character of this ignoble 
man. His whole moral nature seemed to have given way, and he 
proceeded to reveal to the government the names of some of his best 
friends, — especially Sir Henry Neville, — whose connection with his 
crime was not, until that time, known, and who had, no doubt, been 
drawn into the conspiracy by their devotion to himself and his 
fortunes ! Hepworth Dixon says: 

He closes a turbulent and licentious life by confessing against his companions, 
still untried, more than the officers of the Crown could have proved against them; 
and, despicable to relate, most of all against the two men who have been his closest 
associates — Blount and Cuffe. His confessions in the face of death deprive these 
prisoners of the last faint hope of grace. They go with Mcyrick and Danvers to 
the gallows or the block.' 

But it may be said it was in bad taste for Bacon to participate 
in the trial of Essex, because he had once been his friend. This 
would be true if Bacon had volunteered for the task, but he did 
not; he tried to be relieved from it. But he was the sworn officer 
of the Crown, the official servant of the Queen; and the govern- 
ment of Elizabeth was an absolute despotism. He was ordered to 
appear and take part in the prosecution. He begged earnestly — 
he pleaded — to be relieved. The Queen insisted; and not only in- 
sisted, but assigned to him in the first trial — despite his protests — 
that part of the arraignment which referred to Essex' followers 
hiring the players to play the Shakespeare play of Richard II. ! Bacon / 
protested that he had "been wronged by bruits before, and this 
would expose me to them more, and it would be said I gave in 
evidence mine own tales'' But the Queen was inexorable; and, says 
Bacon, " I could not avoid that part that was laid upon me." 

But it may be said that, notwithstanding all this. Bacon should 
have refused to appear against one who had formerly been his 
friend, and who was publicly regarded as his benefactor. He 
should have resigned his place first. But there are no resignations 
in despotisms; and, moreover, the Cipher narrative shows us that 
Bacon may have held his own life at the tenure of the Queen's 
mercy. He may have been compelled, but a short time before, to 
confess the authorship of the Plays and his connection with a 

' Personal History of Lord Bacon, p. 145. 



980 CONCL USIONS. 

former treasonable conspiracy. The sword of Damocles may have 
hung suspended over his head by a single hair — the forbearance of 
Cecil. Should he, in such case, by refusing to perform an official 
duty, have gone to the block with Essex, the victim of a desperate 
and extravagant venture, in which he had taken no part ? For 
Hepworth Dixon notes that in 1597 — the very year I have supposed 
the Cipher narrative to refer to — a separation had taken place 
between Bacon and Essex. He says: 

Essex cools to a man whose talk is very much wiser than he wants to hear. 
They have no scene; no quarrel; no parting; for there are no sympathies to wrench, 
no friendships to dissolve. Essex ceases to seek advice at Gray's Inn. They now 
rarely see each other.' 

And the same high authority thus speaks of Bacon's course in 
the last trial of Essex: 

Called by the Privy Council to bear his part in the great drama, Bacon no more 
shirks his duty at the bar than Levison shirked his duty at Ludgate Hill, or Raleigh 
his duty at Charing Cross. As her counsel learned in the law, he had no more 
choice or hesitation about his duty of defense than her captain of the guard. 
Raleigh and Bacon have each tried to save the Earl, as long as he remained an 
honest man; but England is their first love, and by her faith, her freedom and her 
Queen they must stand or fall. Never is stern and holy duty done more gently on a 
criminal than by Bacon on this trial. He aggravates nothing. If he condemns 
the action, he refrains from needless condemnation of the man.- 

And to the very last he pleads for Essex' life; he intercedes with 
the Queen; he does all he can to save him. And we are told that 
it was not the Queen's intention to send Essex to the block, and 
that his life would have been saved, at the very last, but for the 
miscarriage of a ring which he sent to the Queen as his final appeal 
for mercy. Whether this tradition be true or not, it is certain that 
if Bacon had any hope of saving the man who had levied war against 
the person of the Queen, and whose life was forfeit, he could better 
attain that end by obeying the orders of the government than by 
resisting them. 

But we can only judge fully of his course in all this matter when 
the entire Cipher narrative is laid bare. I feel assured that when 
all the facts are known the character of the great man will come 
f )rth relieved of the last spot and blemish. 

We know enough to convince us that Bacon passed through some 

' Personal History of Lord Bacon ^ pp. 94, 95. ^ Ibid., p. IJ2. 



FRANCIS BACON. g, ^^^ 



dreadful and stormy experiences in the few years subsequent to 
1597; and it was during or soon after iliis period that the mightiest 
of the dramas made their appearance. Misfortune is a tonic to 
strong natures and a poison to weak. There is a plant in South 
America, a plain-looking, knobbed stalk, apparently flowerless; bui 
when the wind blows fiercely and agitates it, the rough lumps open 
and the odorous blossoms protrude. So there are men the splendor 
■of whose faculties is never revealed until they are assailed by the 
cruel winds of adversity. 

To satisfy ourselves that Bacon was one of these, we have only 
to compare Lear and Macbeth with Loves L^ahor Lost and The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona. 

III. Thk Question of Bribery. 

The eagle carries the turtle high up into the air and then lets 
him fall, and descends to feast upon the crushed remains. Let us 
learn a lesson from this incident. If we would utterly destroy a 
man, we must first lift him far up on the wings of praise, into the 
very heaven of exaltation, and then let him fall. When Pope, — 
a crabbed, little, imperfect character, himself, — described Bacon as 
the " greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind," the world took it for 
granted that one who could so transcendently praise his victim must 
certainly tell the truth about him. And an epigram is something 
to be regarded witli the utmost terror. Its power is deadl3^ Pack 
even an error into a compact, antithetical combination of words, and 
the whole world will be ready, ever after, to carry it around in their 
mouths. Its very portaljility is a temptation to take possession of 
it. Its acceptability is much greater than ordinary uncondensed 
truth, even as a government coin will pass current where a lump 
of ore of greater value would be refused. 

But could the greatest and 7C'isest of mankind be the meanest? 
Can greatness be mean ? Is there not here, on the very face of the 
epigram, a contradiction of terms ? 

But why "the meanest of mankind"? Because, it is said, he 

was convicted of bribery as a judge — nay more, he confessed to it; 

he sold the rights of suitcjrs; he bartered away justice for a price. 

If it were true, it were a j^rievoiis fault. 
And grievously hath Ctesar answered it. 



on. 



$2 COXCL USIONS. 

If it were true, then indeed would Bacon be the paradox of 
mankind — the highest powers linked to the basest instincts. Let 
us look into the matter. 

There are two issues presented: 

1. Did Francis Bacon, while Lord Chancellor, receive gifts from 
suitors in his court ? 

2. Did he for these gifts pervert justice ? 

The two issues are widely distinct. The first proposition in- 
volved a custom of the age; — the second has been regarded as an 
abhorrent crime in all ages. 

IV. The System of Gifts. 

Mr. Spedding — very high authority — says: 

But it was the practice in England up to James the First's time at least; and 
the traces of it are still legible in the present state of the law (1874) with 
regard to fees; for I believe it is still true that the laiv ivill not help either the bar- 
rister or the physician to recover a>i unpaid fee; the professions being too liberal 
to make charges, send in bills, or give receipts, or do anything but take the 
money. . . . 

And it is surely possible to conceive gifts both given and taken — even between 
suitor and judge while the cause is proceeding — without any thought of perverting 
justice either in the giver or taker. In every suit both sides are entitled to favor- 
able consideration — that is, to the attention of a mind open to see all that makes 
in their favor — and favorable consideration is all that the giver need be suspected 
of endeavoring to bespeak, or the receiver of engaging to bestow. The suitor almost 
always believes his cause to be just, though he is not always so sure, and in those 
days he had not always reason to be so sure, that its merits would be duly con- 
sidered, if the favorable attention of the judge were not specially attracted to them; 
and though the judge was rightly forbidden to lay himself under an obligation to 
either party, it must be remembered that in all other offices, and in all gentlemanly 
professions, gifts of exactly the satne hind — fees, not fixed by law or defined as to 
amount by custom, or recoverable as debts, but left to the discretion of the suitor, 
client or patient — were in those days the ordinary remuneration for official or pro- 
fessional scj'vices of all kinds ? 

And Mr. Spedding further says: 

The law officers of the Crown derived, I fancy, a considerable part of their 
income from New Year's gifts and other gratuities, presented to them both by 
individuals and corporations whom their office gave them opportunities of obliging.' 

And he gives instances where Lord Burleigh, and his son, Sir 

Robert Cecil, and Lord Treasurer Suffolk took large gifts from 

suitors having business before them, and saw no impropriety in 

doing so. 

' Spedding, Li/e and Works, vol. vii, p. 560. ' Ibid., p. 561. 



FRA NCIS BA CON. ^ ^^ ^ 

TT ^r*- 

Hepworth Dixon says, describing that era: 

Few men in the court or in the church receive salaries from the Crown; and 
each has to keep his state and make his fortune out of fees and gifts. The King 
takes fees. The Archbishop, the Bishop, the rural dean take fees. The Lord 
Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the Baron of the Exchequer, the Master of the 
Rolls, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, the King's Sergeant, the utter 
barrister, all the functionaries of law and justice, take fees. 

So in the great offices of state. The Lord Treasurer takes fees. The Lord 
Admiral takes fees. The Secretary of State, the Chancellor of the E.xchequer, 
the Master of the Wards, the Warden of the Cinque Ports, the Gentlemen of the 
Bedchamber, all take fees. Evoybody takes fees; everybody pays fees. ^ 

Again Mr. Dixon says: 

In some cases, particularly in the courts of justice, it is open. Bassanio may 
present his ducats, three thousand in a bag. The Judge may only take a ring. A 
fee is due whenever an act is done. The occasions on which, by ancient usage of 
the realm, the King claims help or fine are many; the sealing of an office or a 
grant, the knighting of his son, the marriage of his daughter, the alienation of 
lands in capite, his birthday, a New Year's day, the anniversary of his accession or 
his coronation — indeed, at all times when he wants money and finds men rich 
enough and loyal enough to pay. In like manner the clergy levy tithe and toll; 
fees on christenings, fees on churchings, fees on marriages, fees on interments, 
Easter offerings, free offerings, charities, church extensions, pews and rents. 

In the government offices it is the same as in the palace and the church. If 
the Attorney-General, the Secretary of State, the Lord Admiral or the Privy Seal 
puts his signature to a sheet of paper, he takes his fee. Often it is his means of 
life. The retaining fee paid^by the King to Cecil, as Premier of State, is a hundred 
pounds a year. But the fees from other sources are enormous. These fee are not 
.bribes. - 

And again 1 quote from Mr. Dixon: 

A barrister may not ask wages for his toil, like an attorney or a clerk, nor can 
he reclaim by any process of law, as the clerk and attorney can, the value of his 
time and speech. If he lives on the gifts of grateful clients, these gifts must be 
perfectly free.^ 

In fact, it was clearly understood that the great officers of the 
hiw, including the Lord Chancellor, were to be paid by these vol- 
untary gifts. 

Mr. Dixon says: 

Thus the Seals, though the Lord Chancellor had no proper salary, were in 
Egerton's time worth from ten to fifteen thousand pounds a year, of which princely 
sum (twenty-five thousand a year in coin of Victoria) the King only paid him 
eighty-one pounds six shillings and eight pence. Yelverton's place of Solicitor, 
three or four thousand a year, of which he got seventy pounds from James. The 
Judges had enough to buy their gloves and robes, not more. Coke, when Lord 

• Dixon, Personal History of Lord Bacon, p. 290. "" ibid., p. i^i. ' Ibid., p. 392. 



%^ CONCL USIONS. 

Chief Justice of England, drew from the state twelve farthings less than two- 
hundred and twenty-five pounds a year. When traveling circuit he was allowed 
thirty-three pounds six shillings and eight pence for his expenses. Hobart, Chief 
Justice of the Common Pleas, had twelve farthings less than one hundred and 
ninety-five pounds a year. Tanficld, Lord Chief Baron of His Majesty's Ex- 
chequer, one hundred and eighty-eight pounds six shillings a year. Yet each of these 
great lawyers had given up a lucrative practice at the bar. After their promotion 
to the bench they lived in good houses, kept a princely state, gave dinners and 
masks, made presents to the King, accumulated goods and lands. These 7i'as;es 
zuej'e paid in fees by those who resorted J or justice to tlieir courts. 

These fees were not bribes. The courts of law are full of abuses. The highest 
officer of the realm has no salary from the state. Custom imposes on him a host 
of servants; officers of his court and his household; masters, secretaries, ushers, 
clerks, receivers, porters; none of whom receive a mark a year from the crown; 
men who have bought their places, and who are paid, as he himself is paid, in fees 
and fines. The aiiioimt of half these fees is left to chance, to the hope or gratitude of 
the suitor, often to the cupidity of the servant, or the length of the suitor's purse. 
The certain fines of chancery, as subsequent inquiries show, are only thirteen hun 
dred pounds a year, the fluctuating fines still less; beyond which beggarly sum th^- 
great establishment of the Lord Chancellor, his court, his household, and his fol- 
lowers, gentlemen of quality, sons of peers and prelates, magistrates, deputy-lieu- 
tenants of counties, knights of the shire, have all to live on fees and presents. 

But if Bacon's salary for the great office of Lord Chancellor, with 
all its vast retinue of servants and followers, was but four hundred 
dollars a year ^ and if in taking gifts he did no more than all his prede- 
cessors had done, and all the other judges of England in that dav 
were doing, surely there is nothing here to entitle him to be called 
" the meanest of mankind." 

V. Did he Sell Justice? 

But it will be said he confessed that he sold justice for a price 
and decided the cases brought before him according to the amount 
paid him. 

He did nothing of the kind. He distinctly denies the charge. 
He said in a letter to the King, in the very agonies of his trial: 

And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books of 
hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain 
of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice: how- 
soever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the time. 

And again he said, in a letter to Buckingham, May 31, 1621 : 

However I have acknowledged that the sentence is just, and for reformation 
sake fit, I have been a trusty and honest and Christ-loving friend to your Lordship^ 

and the justest Chancellor that hath been in the five changes since my father's time. 



FRANCIS BACON. 



And he also says: 



I praise God for it, I never took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living. 
I never took penny for releasing anything I stopped at the Seal. I never took 
penny for any commission, or things of that nature. 

I never shared with any rev^ard for any second or inferior profit. 

Dixon says: 

As he lies sick at York House, or at Gorhambury, hearing through his friend 
Meautys of the moil and worry about him at the House of Commons, he jots, 
on loose scraps of paper at his side, his answers and remarks. These scraps of 
paper are at Lambeth Palace. 

On one of these sheets he writes: 

There be three degrees of cases, as I conceive, of gifts or rewards given to a 
judge. 

The first is, — of bargain, of contract, or promise of reward, pcndoite lite, and 
this is properly called venalis senteniicc, or baratria, or corruptelce niuneriim. And 
of this my heart tells me I am innocent; that I had no bribe or reward in my eye 
or thought when I pronounced any sentence or order. 

The second is, — a neglect in the judge to inform himself whether the cause 
be fully at an end or no, what time he receives the gift, but takes it upon the 
credit of the party that all is done, or otherwise omits to inquire. 

And the third is, — when it is received, sine fmude, after the cause is ended; 
which, it seems, by the o^/i^rions of the civilians, is no off'ense, . . . 

For the first, I take myself to be as innocent as any babe born on .St. Inno- 
cents' day in my heart. 

For the second, I doubt, in some particulars I may be faulty. 

And for the last, I conceive it to be no fault.' 

But here is another point to be considered: If Bacon had sold 
justice for money, and had rendered unjust decisions, it would have 
been most natural that those suitors who had been wronged by hiin 
would have applied to Parliament, after his downfall, to have his 
corrupt judgments overturned. Spedding says: 

Upon this point, therefore, the records of Parliament tell distinctly and almost 
decisively in Bacon's favor. They show that the circumstances of his conviction 
did encourage suitors to attempt to get his decrees set aside; that several such at- 
tempts were made, but that they all failed; thereby strongly confirming the popu- 
lar tradition reported by Aubrey: "His favorites took bribes, but his Lordship 
always gave judgment secundutn aquum et honuin. His decrees in Chancery stand 
firm. There are fezver of his decrees reversed than of any other Chancellor.' 



J» o 



Says Hepworth Dixon: 

^ An attempt to overthrow some of his judgments fails. Of the thousands of 

decisions pronounced by him in the Court of Chancery not one is reversed.'^ 



' Di.xon's Personal History of Lord Bacon, pp. 335, 336. 

2 Spedding, Life and Works, vol. vii, p. 558. 

^ Dixon's Personal History 0/ Lord Bacon, p. 347. 



CONCL USIONS. 

Surely this does not look like the record of an unjust judge — 
'the meanest of mankind." After his downfall he was poor and 
powerless, and his enemies had control of Parliament. If he had 
perverted justice, in a single instance, would not the ferret eye of 
Coke have detected it; and would he not, from his hatred of Bacon, 
have triumphantly dragged it before the attention of England and 
the whole world ? What kind of bribery was that in which the 
decision was always given on the side of justice? 

VI. The Real Cause of his Downfall. 

But it will be asked, — Why, if this was indeed a just judge, 
whose judgment even his enemies could not question; and if the 
salary of the Lord Chancellor's place was but $400 per annum; 
and if, in accepting gifts from suitors. Bacon simply followed an 
ancient and universal custom: why was the greatest genius that 
England has ever produced cast down in dishonor from his hi_r^^ 
place, and committed to the Tower, a disgraced and ruined man 

It is a terrible story of a degraded era and a corrupt coltI. 
There is not space to present it here in full. Let the reader wJ o 
desires to investigate the subject further turn to Hepworth Dixon t> 
Personal History of Lord Bacon, and read from page 300 to page 342. 
He will there see that the foul and greedy Villiers' clan drove great 
officials out of place for the purpose of selling their positions to 
wealthy adventurers. Suffolk, the Lord Treasurer, was deprived of 
the White Staff, imprisoned in the Tower, and fined ^30,000; Yel- 
verton, the Attorney-General, was thrown out of office and fined 
^4,000. A public auction is made of these places. Sir Henry 
Montague purchases theTreasurership for ^20,000; Coventry buys 
the Attorney's place. The Villiers gang divide the spoils. "These 
profits and promotions edge the tooth for more." Bacon is fixed 
upon as the next victim. Conjoined with these maneuvers of 
infamous men and still more infamous women, there is a tempest 
brewing in the House of Commons, and Coke is there to direct the 
violence of the storm against his old enemy. Bacon. A creature 
named Churchill, who had been turned out of office by Bacon, for 
selling an estate twice over, — a crime for which he should have 
been sent to the penitentiary, — is employed to collect evidence 
against the great Chancellor. Hepworth Dixon says: 



FRANCIS BACON. 

The causes heard are many — five or six hundred in every term; the ser\ 
•of the court are not all honest; some, indeed, are flagitious rogues. The CL 
cellor has not taken them voluntarily into his service, nor can he always turn tht-rri 
adrift: their places are their freeholds. Among thousands of suitors, all of vhom 
must have paid fees into the court, half of whom must i)e smarting under the pangs 
of a lost cause, it will be strange, indeed, if cunning, malice and unscrupulous 
power combined cannot find some charge that may be tortured into a wrong. . 

VII. Nor \ Single Corrupt Act Proved. 

Hepworth Dixon continues: 

The evidence produced against him, as Heneage Finch has told the House of 
■Commons, proves his case and frees him from blame. Of the twenty-two charges 
of corruption, three are debts — Compton's, Peacock's and Vanlore's: two of 
these, Compton's and Vanlore's, debts on bond and interest. Any man who 
borrows money may be as justly charged with taking bribes. One case, 
that of the London Companies, is an arbitration, not a suit in law. Even 
Cranfield, though bred in the city, cannot call their fee a bribe. Smithwick's 
gift, being found irregular, had been sent back. Thirteen cases — those of 
Young, Wroth, Hody, Barker, Monk, Trevor, Scott, Fisher, Lenthal, Dunch, 
Montagu, Ruswell, and the Frenchmen — are of daily practice in every court of 
law. They fall under Bacon's third list, common fees, paid in the usual way, paid 
after judgment has been given. Kennedy's present, of a cabinet for York House, 
has never been accepted, the Chancellor hearing that the artisan who made it had 
not been paid. Reynell, an old neighbor and friend, gave him two hundred 
pounds toward furnishing York House, and sent him a ring on New Year's day. 
Everybody gives rings, everybody takes rings, on a New Year's day. The gift of 
;i^500 from Sir Ralph Hornsby was made after a judgment, though, as afterwards 
appeared, while a second, much inferior cause, was still in hearing. The gift was 
openly made, not to the Chancellor, but to the officer of his court. The last case 
is that of Lady Wharton; the only one that presents an unusual feature. Lady 
Wharton, it seems, brought her presents to the Chancellor herself ; yet even her 
gifts were openly made, in the presence of the proper officer and his clerk. Church- 
ill admits being present in the room when Lady Wharton left her purse: Gardner, 
Keeling's clerk, asserts that he was present when she brought the ;^200. Even 
Coke is staggered by proofs which prove so much; for who in his senses can sup- 
pose that the Lord Chancellor would have done an act known to be illegal and 
criminal in the company of a registrar and a clerk ? It is clear that a thing which 
Bacon did under the eyes of Gardner and Churchill must have been, in his 
mind, customary and right. It is no less clear that if Bacon had done 
wrong, knowing it to be wrong, he would never have braved exposure of 
his fraud by turning Churchill into the streets. Thus, after the most rigorous 
and vindictive scrutiny into his official acts, and into the official acts of his 
servants, not a single fee or rcmeinbrancc traced to the Chancellor can, by any fair con- 
struction, he called a bribe. Not one appears to have been given on a promise; not 
one appears to have been given in secret; not one is alleged to hat'c corrupted justice.^ 

And vet it is upon this proceeding and these facts that the 
most wonderful intellect of the race has been blackened in the 

' 'D\\on^sPe7-so>iat History of Lord Bacon, pp. 336, 337. 



CONCL USIONS. 

illation of the whole human family, and sent down through the 
. es with a scurrilous epigram pinned upon his back, denouncing 
iiim as the meanest man that ever lived upon the planet. 

And if the fair-minded critic will set aside Macaulay's shallow 
and unfair essay, and consult Spedding or Hepworth Dixon, he 
will find that every minor charge against Bacon — his assisting at 
the torture of Peacham; his consulting with the judges at the 
instance of King James; his alleged ingratitude to Somerset, etc. — 
are all fully met and disposed of. 

VIII. Why did he Plead Guilty ? 

But why — it will be asked — did he plead guilty to the charges ? 
Dixon gives these reasons: 

In a private interview James now urges the Chancellor to trust in him; to offer 
no defense; to submit himself to the peers; to trust his honor and his safety to the 
Crown. It is only too easy to divine the reasons which weigh with Bacon to intrust 
his fortunes to the King. He is sick. He is surrounded by enemies. No man has 
power to help him, save the sovereign. He is weary of greatness. Age is approach- 
ing. In his illness he has learned to think more of heaven and less of the world. 
His nobler tasks are incomplete. He has the Seals, and the delights of power 
begin to pall. To resist the King's advice is to provoke the fate of Yelverton, still 
an obstinate prisoner in the Tower. Nor can he say that these complaints against 
the courts of law, against the Court of Chancery, arc untimely or unjust. So far 
as they attack the court, and not the judge, they are in the spirit of all his writ- 
ings, and of all his votes. In his soul he can find no fault with the House of Com- 
mons, though the accidents of time and the machinations of powerful enemies 
have made him, the Reformer, a sacrifice to a false cry for reform. . . . 

//(' pleads guilty to carelessness, not to crime. But he points out, too, that all the 
irregularities found in his court occurred when he was new in office, strange to his 
clerks and registrars, overwhelmed with arrears of work. The very last of them 
is two years old. For the latter half of his reign as Chancellor, the vindictive 
inquisition of his enemies, aided by the treachery of his servants, has ttot been able 
to detect in his administration of justice a fault, much less a crime} 

But behind these reasons there were still many others. He was 
in the unlimited power of the King; and the King was ruled by his 
favorite, Buckingham, a merciless, greedy, sordid wretch, who 
desired to sell Bacon's place to the highest bidder, and would not 
be thwarted of his victim. The King was alarmed, also, at the 
storm signals in Parliament. The tempest was rising which cost 
his son his head. The cry for reform must be appeased; a tub 
must be thrown to the whale. Bacon's ruin would satisfy for a 

* Dl.'jon'^ rcrscmnl History of Lord Bacon, p. 342. 



FRANCIS BACON. 

time the clamorous reformers, while it would enrich Buckii ^ 

and his clique. Bacon was doomed. He understood the situi 
He regarded himself as a sacrifice. He said, in a letter to the k 
in 1620: 

And now making myself an oblation, lo do with me as may best conduce to th 
honor of your justice, the honor of your mercy and the use of your service, resting 
as clay in your Majesty's gracious hands, etc. 

And again he said, with the voice of prophecy: 

Those who now strike at your Chancellor will yet strike at your crown. 

What would have been the result had he stood out and refused 
to plead guilty? He would certainly have been convicted, impris- 
oned, ruined by a heavy fine, perhaps sent to the block. 

By the King's grace his fine of ^40,000 is remitted; he is released 
from the Tov^'er, and he has time to co7)iplcte his great 7(.<orks. 

He writes in cipher: 

I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the 
justest censure that was in Parliament these two hundred years. 

That is to say, while personally innocent of bribe-taking, his 
condemnation had led to the reformation of the abuse of gift-giv- 
ing to judges. 

But he puts this in cipher, — he whispers it, — and opposite it he 
writes *S7r/" — as if lie was preparing his papers for posterity, and 
eliminating those things which might tell more than he wished the 
world yet to know; just as we have seen his correspondence with Sir 
Tobie Matthew excised and eliminated. 

He bowed his neck to the storm which he could neither avert 
nor control; biding his time, he took his secret appeal to " foreign 
nations, the next ages, and to his own countrymen after some time 
be passed." He made a formal confession, it is true, to Parliament, 
but it is a defense and a justification, in every word, as well; for 
with each case he gives those details which relieve it of all aspect 
of bribery. 

And he turned patiently away, with the burden of a great 
injustice and a mighty sorrow upon him, and devoted the lj.st live 
years of his life to the putting forth of works unequaled since the 
globe first rolled on its axis. 



I 



CONCL USIONS. 
IX. The Doom of his Enemies. 

nd yet, being human, he must have rejoiced over the fate 
ch speedily overtook his corrupt and malicious persecutors. 
Hepworth Dixon says: 

From the seclusion of Gorhambury, or Gray's Inn, he watches the men who 
nave ruined his fortune and stained his name fall one by one. Before their year 
of triumph ran out, Coke's intolerable arrogance plunged him into the Tower, 
from which he escaped after eight months' imprisonment, to be permanently 
degraded from the Privy Council, banished from the court, and confined to his 
dismal ruin of a house at Stoke. The sale of Frances Coke to Viscount Purbeck 
is a dismal failure. She makes the man to whom she was sold perfectly miserable; 
quitting his house for days and nights; braving the public streets in male attire; 
falling in guilty love with Sir Robert Howard; shocking even the brazen sinners 
of St. James's by the excessive profligacy of her life. Purbeck steals abroad to 
hide his shame. At last he goes raving mad. . . . 

Were there space in Bacon's generous heart for vengeance, how the passions 
of the great Chancellor would leap and glow as these' adversaries fall before his 
eyes like rotten fruit ! Never was the wisdom of counsel proved more signally, 
the vindication of conduct more complete. All that he foresaw of evil has come to 
pass. He does not, indeed, live to behold that fiery joy which lights and shakes 
the land when Buckingham's tyranny drops under an assassin's knife; but he lives 
long enough to find himself justified by facts on every point of his opposition to 
the scandalous family policy and private bargains of the Villiers clan. . . . 

The very next Parliament which meets in Westminster strikes down two of his 
foes. Three years after his return to that trust he so grossly abused, Churchill 
comes before the House of Commons as a culprit. He has been at his tricks 
agajn, and is now solemnly convicted of forgery and fraud. Two months after 
Churchill's condemnation Cranfield is in turn assailed. Charges of taking bribes 
from the farmers of customs, of fraudulent dealing with the royal debts, of robbing 
the magazine of arms, are proved against him; when abandoned by his powerful 
friends, he is sentenced by the House of Commons to public infamy, to loss of 
office, to imprisonment in the Tower, to a restitutionary fine of ^200,000. " In 
future ages," says a wise observer of events, " men will wonder how my Lord St. 
Albans could have fallen, and how my Lord of Middlesex could have risen." ' 

X. The World's Indebtedness to the Great Philosopher. 

There have not been wanting those whose devotion to the man 
of Stratford has been so great, that they have not only disputed 
the title of Francis Bacon to the Plays, but have even denied that, 
as a philosopher, he had any claims upon the respect of mankind. 

Let us examine a few witnesses upon this point. 

First, let us call that distinguished biographer and essayist, but 
not historian, Macaulay, who has done more than any other man, 

' Di.xon's Personal History 0/ Lord Bacon, p. 356. 



FRANCIS BACON. 

991 

Pope alone excepted, to injure the reputation of Francis Bacon. 
Macaulay says: 

Ask a follower of Bacon what the new philosophy has eflecicd for mankind 
and his answer ,s ready: " It has lengthened life; it has mitiRated pain; it has ex- 
tinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new secur- 
ities to the manner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great 
rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the 
thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the 
splendor ot the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multi- 
plied the power of human muscle; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated dis- 
tance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendlv offices, all dispatch 
of busmess; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into 
the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the 
land with cars which whirl along without horses, and the ocean with ships which 
sail against the wind.' 

But how, it may be asked, has all this been accomplished ? 

By using the senses to understand external nature, and the 
powers of the mind to master it for the good of man. 

And therein is the key of all that we call progress and civiliza- 
tion. Bacon perceived that the mind of man was a divine instru- 
ment, lent to him fc)r good purposes, not to be used on itself, but 
to be turned upon that vast universe of matter which lies outside 
of it. And hence, as he made Montaigne say, " the senses are the 
beginning and end of knowledge: — there must we fight it out to 
the end." 

Macaulay says: 

The chief peculiarity of Bacon's philosophy seems to us to have been this — 
that it aimed at X.h.m'gs altogetlur different from lluil which his predecessors huti pro- 
posed to theinseh'es. . . . He used means dififerent from those used by other philoso- 
phers, because he wished to arrive at an end altogether different from theirs. . . . 
It was, to use his own expression, "'fruit." It was the multiplying of human 
enjoyments and the mitigating of human suflferings. It was " the relief of man's 
estate." . . . The art which Bacon taught was the art of inventing arts. . . . He 
was not the person who first showed that by the inductive method alone new truth 
could be discovered. But he was the person who first turned the minds of specu- 
lative men, long occupied in verbal disputes, to the discovery of new truth; and by 
doing so, he at once gave to the inductive method an importance and dignity 
which had never before belonged to it. . . . Two words form the key of the Bacon- 
ian doctrine — utility and progress. The aucient philosophy disdained to he useful, 
and was content to be stationary. It dealt largely in theories of moral perfection. 
which were so sublime that they never could be more than theories; in attempts to 
solve insoluble enigmas; in exhort?tions to the attainment of unattainable frames 
of mind. It could not condescend to the humble office of ministering to the com- 
fort of human beings. 

1 Macaulay 's Essays — Baeon, p. 278. 



1 



1 



992 CONCLUSIONS. 

It is marvelous that the world could not see that Shakespeare 
was preaching this very philosophy: 

Nature, what things there are 
Most abject in regard and dear in use! 
What things again, most dear in the esteem 
And poor in worth} 



And again; 



Most poor matters 
Point to rich ends. 



But it is claimed by some that Bacon's influence on our modern 
civilization has been exaggerated. Let me call another excellent 
witness: 

Fowler proves'' that Bacon's influence predominated in the mind 
and philosophy of Locke, who alluded to him as " the great Lord 
Verulam; " and that, through him, Bacon acted upon the minds of 
" Berkley, Hume, Hartley, Reid, Stewart, the two Mills, Condillac, 
Helvetius, Destutt de Tracy, to say nothing of less known or more 
recent writers." He adds: " Descartes, Mersenne, Gassendi, Peiresc, 
Du Hamel, Bayle, Voltaire, Condillac, D'Alembert in France; Vico 
in Italy; Comenius, Puffendorf, Leibnitz, Huygens, Morhof, Boer- 
haave, Buddaeus in Germany; and in England, the group of men 
who founded, or were amongst the earliest members of, the Royal 
Society, such as Wallis, Oldenburg, Glanville, Hooke and Boyle," ' 
all bore testimony to the greatness of Bacon's service to science. 

The great Scotchman Mackintosh says: 

Bacon was not what is called a metaphysician; his plans for the improvementof 
science were not inferred by abstract reasoning fron. any of those primary princi- 
ples to which the philosophers of Greece struggled to fasten their systems. Hence 
he has been treated as empirical and superficial by those who take to themselves 
the exclusive name of profound speculators. He was not, on the other hand, a 
mathematician, an astronomer, a physiologist, a chemist. He was not eminently 
conversant with the particular truths of any of those sciences which existed in his 
time. For this reason, he was underrated even by men themselves of the highest 
merit, and by some who had acquired the most just reptitation, by adding new facts 
to the stock of knowledge. It is not therefore very surprising to find that Harvey, 
"though the friend as well as the physician of Bacon, though he esteemed him 
much for his wit and style, would not allow him to be a great philosopher," but said 
to Aubrey, " He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor," — "in derision," as 
the honest biographer thinks fit expressly to add. On the same ground, though in 
a manner not so agreeable to the nature of his own claims on reputation, Mr. Hume 
has decided that Bacon was not so great a man as Galileo because he was not so 

' Troilus and Cressiiia, iii, 3. ^ Bacon, p. 193. ^ Ibid., p. 195. 



FRANCIS BACON. 



993 



great an astronomer. The same sort of injustice to his memory has been more 
often committed than avowed, by professors of the exact and the experimental 
sciences, who are accustomed to regard, as the sole test of service to knowledge, 
a palpable addition to her store. It is very true that he made no discoveries; but 
his life was employed in teaching the method by which discoveries are made. This 
distinction was early observed by that ingenious poet and amiable man, on whom 
we, by our unmerited neglect, have taken too severe a revenge, for the exaggerated 
praises bestowed on him by our ancestors: 

Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last. 

The barren wilderness he past. 
Did on the very border stand 

Of the promised land, 
And from the mountain top of his exalted wit 

Saw it himself, and showed us it.' 

Taine says: 

When he wished to describe the efficacious nature of his philosophy by a tale, 
he delineated in The New Atlatitis, with a poet's boldness and the precision of a 
seer, almost employing the very terms in use now, modern applications, and the 
present organization of the sciences, academies, observatories, air-balloons, sub- 
marine vessels, the improvement of land, the transmutation of species, regenera- 
tions, the discovery of remedies, the preservation of food. "The end of our 
foundation," says his principal personage, "is the knowledge of causes and S( 
motives of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the eft 
ing all things possible. And this 'possible' is infinite." ... \ 

He recommends moralists to study the soul, the passions, habits, temptation 
not merely in a speculative way, but with a view to the cure or diminution o 
:\ vice, and assigns to the science of morals as its goal the amelioration of morals. 

j In 1603 Bacon said that he proposed to 

', Kindle a light in nature — a light which shall, at its very rising, touch and 

illuminate all the border regions that confine upon the circle of our present knowl- 
edge ; and so spreading further shall presently disclose and bring into sight all that 
is most hidden and secret in the world. 

Have not his anticipations been realized ? Does not the great 
conflagration of science, kindled by his torch, not only burn up 
the rubbish of many ancient errors, and enlarge the practical powers 
of mankind, but is it not casting great luminous tongues of flame, 
day by day, farther out into the darkness with which nature has 
encompassed us ? 

And how grandly does he prefigure the station which he will 
occupy in the judgment of posterity when he says that the man 
who shall kindle that light 

Would be the benefactor indeed of the human race, the propagator of man's 

' The Modern British Essayists- Mackintosh p. 18. 
^ Taine's History 0/ Englisii Literature, p. 155. 



994 CONCL USIONS. 

empire over the universe, the champion of liberty, the conqueror and subduer of 
necessities. 

He tried even to hurry up civilization. He sought to use the 
royal power to give the seventeenth century the blessings now 
enjoyed by the nineteenth. He writes King James, in 1620, present- 
ing him with the Novum Organutn: 

I account your favor may be to this work as much as a hundred years' time ; 
for I am persuaded the work will gain upon men's minds in ages, but your gracing it 
may make it take hold more swiftly; which I would be very glad of, it being a 
work meant, not for praise or glory, hut for practice and the good of man. 

And again he says, in the same letter: 

Even in your time many noble inventions may be discovered for man's use. 
For who can tell, now this mine of truth is opened, how the veins go; and what 
lielh higher and what lieth lower ? 

His heart thirsted for the good of mankind. He saw in his 
mind's eye things akin to the marvels of steam and electricity. 
And if Bacon had been king, or had ruled England with unlimited 
power, instead of the foul and shallow Buckingham, who can say 
how far the progress of the world might have been advanced in a 
single generation ? 

But he realized, at last, how delusive were these hopes. He 

says, in a letter to Father Fulgentio, the Venetian: 

Of the perfecting this I have cast away all hopes ; but in future ages perhaps 
the design may bud again. . . . Such, I mean, which touch, almost, the universals 
of nature, there will be laid no inconsiderable foundations of this matter. 

And in the sonnets he savs he had 

Laid girat bases for eternity. 
But he knew that progress is a matter of great minds ; that civ- 
ilization moves with giant strides from the apex of one grand soul 
to another. He says: 

And since sparks can work but upon matter prepared, I have the more reason 
to wish that those sparks may fly abroad, that they may the better find, and light 
upon those minds and spirits which are apt to be kindled.' 

XI. His Prophetic Anticipattons. 

" His mind," says Montagu, " pierced into future contingents." 
He could 

Look into the seeds of time, 
And say which grain would grow and which would not. 

' Letter to Dr. Playfer. 



/ 



^•«»1t 



f 



FRANCIS BACON. 995 

In The New Atlantis he anticipates tlie discovery of means of 
"flying in the air;" also of vessels that move under the water; 
also of " swimming-girdles," or life-preservers. He also believes 
that some forms of perpetual motion will be discov .red. He pre- 
figures the telephone and the microphone when he represents the 
people of the New Atlantis possessed of " certain helps which set to 
ear do greatly further the hearing ; " and he anticipates a recent 
useful invention in these words: " We have also means to convey 
sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances." He 
also foreshadowed our Signal Service establishment: 

We do also declare natural divinations of disear ". plagues, swarms of /luii/ut 
creatures, scarcity, tempests, earfhqua/ces, great inundaii^. •«. comets, temperature of 
the year, and divers other things; and we give counsel thereupon what the people 
shall do for the prevention and remedy of them.' 

He anticipated our system of patent-rights for the encourage- 
ment of inventors, and even our national gallery of models: 

For upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give 
him a liberal and honorable reward. We have two very long and fine galleries: 
in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and 
excellent inventions ; in the other we place the statues of all the principal inventors.* 

He anticipated Darwin when he said: 

It would be very difficult to generate new species, but less so to vary known 
species, and thus produce many rare and unusual results. 

He foreshadowed in The New Atlantis the system now adopted 
by all civilized nations of conserving the health of its own people 
by establishing a quarantine for strangers. 

He anticipated the recent studies upon the shape of the conti- 
nents ' — "broad and expanded toward the north, and narrow and 
pointed toward the south." 

He anticipated Roemer's discovery of time being required for the 
propagation of light. 

He inclined, toward the last, to accept the doctrine of the rota- 
tion of the earth on its axis, because if the heavenly bodies moved 
around the earth they would have to travel with inconceivable 
velocity to make their diurnal journey. 

He says: 

^ Nevi Atlantis. * Ibid. ^ Novum Organum,hoo)x.\\. 



996 CONCL U SIGNS. 

For if the earth stand still, and the heavens perform a diurnal revolution, 
undoubtedly it is a system; but if the earth be rotary, it is, nevertheless, not abso- 
lutely proved that it is not a system, because we may still fix another center of the 
system, such as the sun, or something else. . . . And the consent of later ages and 
of antiquity has rather anticipated and sanctioned that idea than not. For the 
supposition of the earth's motion is not new, but, as we have already said, echoed 
from the ancients.' 

The Italian anatomist Malpighi was " the first to apply the 
microscope in investigating the anatomical structure of plants and 
animals," but he was not born until after Bacon's death. And vet 
we find Bacon in The New Atlantis saying: 

We have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and 
distinctly, as the shape and colors of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in 
gems, observations in urine and blood, not otherwise to be seen. 

We have seen him in the Plays approaching very closely to 
Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. 
We also have him saying: 



The very essence of heat, or the substantial self of heat, is motion, and nothing 



else. ^ 



Let it not be forgotten, therefore, that Bacon was the first in 
the W(jrld to reveal the great truth that heat is a mode of motion. 
The savage regards heat as an animal. Lucretius believed it to be 
a substance akin to the substance of the soul. Aristotle thought it 
^ ^tSndition of matter. Bacon called it ''a niotion of expansion ; a 
motion and nothing else." Descartes followed him and defined it 
as the motion of the insensibly small parts of matter. Locke, 
carrying out the same thought, called it " a very brisk agitation of 
the insensible parts of an object." But long after Bacon's time 
Lavoisier and Black still believed that heat was an actual substance. 
Science, however, two hundred years after Bacon's Novum Organum 
was written, has settled down into the conviction that the philoso- 
pher of Verulam was right; and that heat is, as Davy expresses it, 
"a vibratory motion of the particles of matter;" which is but a 
condensation of Bacon's view that heat is "a mode of expansion of 
the smaller particles of matter, . . . checked, repelled and beaten 
back, so that the body acquires a motion alternate, perpetually 
■quivering, striving and struggling." 

• Description of the Intellectual Globe, chap, vi, § 2. ' Novujn Organum, book ii. 



FRANCIS BACON. 997 



* 1 



He approxi'iSiatf^ very closely to Newton's discovery of the law 

gravitation. He says: 

< 
Heavy and ponderous bodies must either of their own nature tend towards the 

center of the earth by their peculiar formation, or must be attracted and hurried, 

by the corponeal mass of the earth itself, as being an assemblage of similar bodies, 

and be drawn to it by sympathy. . . . The attraction of the corporeal mass of the 

earth may be taken as the cause of weight.' 

And we find him in the Plays saying: 

But the strong base and building of my love 
Ii! as the very eenter of the earth, 
Draiving all things to it.- 

He suggested experiments with the pendulum upon great heights 
and in deep mines, 

Which have since been used as the most delicate tests of the variation of 
gravity from the er[uator towards the poles. 

In the Gesfa Grayorinii'' we find him anticipating public libra- 
ries, public gardens of plants, zoological gardens, and even the 
British Museum ! 

Even in other directions his vast mental activity extended itself: 

Nicolai claims Bacon as the founder of Free Masonry."* 

And I have shown that his philosophical thoughts have pene- 
trated and permeated all the great minds who have since lived in 
England and Europe. But who shall measure the influence of his 
1 genius through the Plays upon the thoughts and opinions of man- 
kind ? 

De Ouincev calls him 

The glory of the human intellect. 

Carlyle speaks of him as 

The greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left record of himself in 
j the way of literature. 

^ Dr. CJialmers describes him as 

An intellectual miracle. 

Emerson says of him: 

It was not possible to write the history of Shakespeare until now; for he is the 
father of German literature: it was on the introduction of Shakespeare into 

' NoviXm Organuiii, book ii. ^Li/e and Works, Spedding, vol. i, p. 335. 

= Troi \and Cressida, iv, 2. ■• .4 New Study of Slialces/<eure, p. 192. 



n 



-J 



998 CONCL USIONS. 

*\ 

Germany, by Lessing, and the translation of his works uy Wi^and and Schlegel, 
that the rapid burst of German literature was most intimately connected. It was. 
not until the nineteenth century, whose speculative genius is a sort of living 
Hamlet, that the tragedy of Hamlet could find such wondermg readers. Now, 
literature, philanthropy and thought are Shakespearized. His mind is the horizon 
beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our ears are educated to music by his 
rhythm. Coleridge and Goethe are the only critics who have expressed our con- 
victions with any adequate fidelity; but there is in all cultivated minds a silent 
appreciation of his superlative power'and beauty, which, like Christianity, qualifies. 
the period.' 

' Representative Men, p. 201. 



I h I 



/ 



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